Metal Detecting Forum

As a total newbie with just 4 hours of time on my Fisher F4, my toughest issue is pin pointing where the target is in the ground.My unit uses an 11" DD coil.I`ve watched lots of youtube and it has been helpful.

Share your tips?

Hey there! PP can be tough. On my White's DFX there is a trigger you pull and it zeros you right in above the target and gives you the approx depth. On my Minelab Sovereign GT its all about the sound. Try the wiggle technique and/or go at the target from different angles and try to make an 'x' over the target. It takes practice but you will soon figure it out without a doubt. HH. Matt

I still use the tip of the coil on my GT because I have trouble with DD coils using the center, though I rarely have tried it. I don't even go into pinpoint mode, but instead just wiggle the coil forward in discrimination mode until I just hear the signal. Then the target is right at the front edge of the coil. On my Explorers I used to use the center of the coil despite them also being a DD but I never had much accuracy that way...But then again those machines weren't know for being very good at PPing in the first place. The SE is said to be much easier. Part of that probably has to do with the better Pro Coil, as the old 10" Explorer coils had a pretty "fuzzy" detection field to me.

On my prior Whites (6000 Pro XL or QXT Pro) being a concentric I always used the center of the coil. The trick is on some machines like these you can center over the target in PP mode and then release the trigger and then pull it back in again to PP mode and this will detune the detector and make the spot even tighter where it sounds off. Just push the coil against the ground and dab it around until you get the loudest signal again. You can even do this detuning one more time to really narrow the beam down. It was deadly accurate doing that.

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Think I'm finally home after a lot of years searching for my particular needs. Custom 1.5 lb lighter Sovereign GT (easy to do by just "building" lighter shaft) & SEF 12x10 as everyday coil. 8" Tornado (actually 7.25") as super heavy trash coil (Very deep & separates better than typical 8/9" true size coils). 13" Ultimate for large fields/beaches on certain days I want to grid faster than even the 12x10's nice improvement over stock for that. Stock 10" Tornado stays on water rig (stock shaft). ProPointer. Owned 15x12 & SunRay S-5 (5.5") at one time. Loaned a prior 13" Ultimate & SunRay S-12 (12.5").

Some Oldest Silver- 1835 Bust Dime, 1842 "O" Seated Dime, 1855 Seated Quarter, 1858 3 Cent Piece, 1891 Seated Dime, & another Seated Quarter too damaged to read date. Highest Value- 3 Cent Piece, Seated Quarter, & now 1921 F-12 Standing Liberty. Oldest Coin? Got to give large cents a good look & see. 2013 so far- 1 Seated Quarter, 1 Barber Quarter, 1 Standing Liberty, 2 Washingtons, 1 Barber Dime, 9 Mercs, 3 Rosies. 1 War Nickel. 19 silvers in total, & 1 1872 key date Indian, 2 Bufallos, 1 man's 14K gold medium sized ring & 1 gold chain, with possibility of few 8"+ deep mystery coins being Indians after cleaning.

What matters in life is the journey and not the desitination. How you handle that journey determines if you were a success, not so much what you achieved if and when you finally get there, especially if you made it by stepping on people along the way...

In loving memory of my long haired (wooly) husky Sky. She taught me just how beautiful and pure a soul can be, human or not...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2012 11:04AM by Critterhunter.

Pinpointing at first with a DD confused the heck out of me at first, then I learned a few tricks and its easy as pie nowadays.
2 ways to do this.
Using the pinpoint button, scan side to side till you hear the loudest tone then STOP!
Leave coil on that spot and turn 90 degrees and again scan side to side.
Stop again at the loudest tone and the target should be just north of the center of that coil.

I actually prefer this way because it is way quicker for me.
The wiggle and pull back technique mentioned above.
Wiggle over the target in smaller and smaller sweeps till you have it right in the middles of that coil, then keep wiggling but slowly pull back till the signal drops off.
If the target is shallow, say within 2-3 inches, the target will be just in back of the arc in the center of the front of that coil.
Deeper targets will be just in front of that arc.
Even if you are not exact or use a Propointer like I do to really zero in before digging, this should get you within about 1-2 inches of the area you need to dig.
3 inches at the most if you are really off.

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Vaquero, F2, Compadre, Compass Judge 2 and 2 Propointers in case I lose one!
2013 totals...$123.45...4 gold rings, 1 gold chain and 5 pieces of silver!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/08/2012 11:01AM by REVIER.

The 'dead center' of your 11" DD coil is the small dot by the rod attachment. Looks like a injection molding mark. There is one on the top of coil, one one the bottom. With the 11" DD, I raise the coil about 3" above the ground on shallow targets. Use less distance if target sounds deep. Why raise the coil? This is due to DD coils sometimes misreading targets in first 3" from coil bottom. Its due to DD coil technology, not a flaw of the manufacturer/coil.
Have coil completely off the target, press & hold the pinpoint button, bring coil over target, press pinpoint again, while still having button held down' move coil off target....release button when off target, then press & hold button down, bring over back target, release button, press down again..... Keep repeating this process until the audio signal is tiny 'audio blip'.
Each time you bring coil back over target and press pinpoint it shrinks the audio signal/target area. In detector terminology, this is called 'de-tuning'.

I use my coil to get as tight an approximation as I can and then I let my Garrett Propointer do the rest.

That works for me.

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De-activated at members request

Detuning only works on some detectors. Others won't detune if you release the PP trigger and then pull it again over the target. Wish my GT had that feature like it was on my other machines.

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Think I'm finally home after a lot of years searching for my particular needs. Custom 1.5 lb lighter Sovereign GT (easy to do by just "building" lighter shaft) & SEF 12x10 as everyday coil. 8" Tornado (actually 7.25") as super heavy trash coil (Very deep & separates better than typical 8/9" true size coils). 13" Ultimate for large fields/beaches on certain days I want to grid faster than even the 12x10's nice improvement over stock for that. Stock 10" Tornado stays on water rig (stock shaft). ProPointer. Owned 15x12 & SunRay S-5 (5.5") at one time. Loaned a prior 13" Ultimate & SunRay S-12 (12.5").

Some Oldest Silver- 1835 Bust Dime, 1842 "O" Seated Dime, 1855 Seated Quarter, 1858 3 Cent Piece, 1891 Seated Dime, & another Seated Quarter too damaged to read date. Highest Value- 3 Cent Piece, Seated Quarter, & now 1921 F-12 Standing Liberty. Oldest Coin? Got to give large cents a good look & see. 2013 so far- 1 Seated Quarter, 1 Barber Quarter, 1 Standing Liberty, 2 Washingtons, 1 Barber Dime, 9 Mercs, 3 Rosies. 1 War Nickel. 19 silvers in total, & 1 1872 key date Indian, 2 Bufallos, 1 man's 14K gold medium sized ring & 1 gold chain, with possibility of few 8"+ deep mystery coins being Indians after cleaning.

What matters in life is the journey and not the desitination. How you handle that journey determines if you were a success, not so much what you achieved if and when you finally get there, especially if you made it by stepping on people along the way...

In loving memory of my long haired (wooly) husky Sky. She taught me just how beautiful and pure a soul can be, human or not...

I have the F4 with the 11 DD and what I do is detune the coil.

Push the pin point button and scan the area for the loudest tone. Move the coil to the side, 1/2 the coils width, of where you think center is, push the button again and pin point again. If you did it right the tone area has gotten smaller. You can do that several times until it only sounds off directly over dead center. It's not hard, it just takes a little practice.
A few things I figured out about the F4 is pull tabs tend to pin points to the right of center and rusted metal pin points forward of center and bottle caps pin point perfect.

Detuning can be done on any machine with a pin point feature.

If the sound area is big and it says it's an inch deep chances are it a large object.