F5 FE Bars

[fisherf5user]

Hey folks, I am still new to this but I've learned a lot from you guys so far. I read a while back someone making reference to the FE bars on the Fisher F5 reacting to a target in the ground. My understanding is that these bars indicate the level of iron in the ground, but I was curious if there is a way to use them to help decipher a target. I am mostly concerned with weeding out garbage, particularly bottle caps. Should the FE bars be changing when I am over a target containing iron?

I am detecting in Canada where all our most valuable coins seem to come up in the TID 10 - 11 range. Detecting in Canada is hard mode

 

[mojotrout]

Good question! I was wondering the same thing. I hope someone responds with some info....

 

[stilpony]

I'm still waiting for the guru, Mike, to pop in on this, I'm curious to find this out for myself!

 

[Mike Hillis]

The FE meter will spike over any kind of metal. Coins, Bottle Caps, nails, etc. Not really that useful for identifiying iron targets. Probably be better to try and use the Phase number to id those type of coins. Air test some of your coins and see what the Phase numbers are. Then try some on the ground, then look at real life targets. I think you will find that to be much more useful.

HH
Mike

 

[sqwaby]

FisherF5, there is a post a few months back by Sven. It is a compilation of posting from Mike Hillis, it's a must read for any F5 user. It goes into the phase number and how it relates to target IDs. I dug a gold ring my first time out applying the info I read there. Ring ID'd at 27 as a lot of foil does, but the gold ring bottomed out the phase # to about 2-4 which caused me to not dismiss the target as foil which in my dirt was setting a higher phase #. Here is a link http://www.treasurelinx.com/fisher.html

 

[fisherf5user]

Mike, Sqwaby, this is helpful, thank-you. I'll experiment with phase numbers for a while. I don't even look at them presently aside from ground balancing.

I've been getting a lot of solid TID 80 bottle caps. I have noticed that the fe bars move from 2 to 3 when I am over the bottle cap and I wondered if this was a way to help weed them out. I also noticed that if I raise the detector higher above the bottle cap the TID starts to bounce around. I am not sure if the signal would break the same way with a good target though. I am still pretty inexperienced so I have been digging pretty much everything.

 

[stilpony]

As always, GREAT INFO guys!!! Off to read that article that sqwaby posted above!!!

HH
Pony

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Better off to pay attention to the VDI number especially on bottle caps as usually the number will jump around and not be specific whereas the good target will have a stable reading fluctuating a number or two...

 

[knarfj]

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[BluesCruise]

Something I have noticed with the steel bottle caps is with the machine in discriminate mode, but with the discrimination turned all the way down, is that the bottle caps have a very distinct "pop" just before what would sound off as a high tone for a quarter and above, where a good target doesn't have that pop.

I was hunting the Columbia river last week, as it is lower than it has been for quite some time. I was hunting from what would have been the normal waterline down to the new waterline. I have hunted a lot of trashy parks and old home sites, but I have never seen (or heard) so many nails in an area that large. Running any discrimination just made it more difficult. So staying in discriminate mode, with it turned all the way down suddenly revealed a lot of masked high tones in either 3 or 4 tone mode. It seems between the high mineralization, hot rocks and iron down there, that the machine just couldn't sort through it with any discrimination on at all! wierd

Good hunting!

Ron

 

[TrpnBils]

So were you able to find anything good by turning the disc off? That sounds an awful lot like an old house I'm hunting right now.....so much rust and junk it's hard even to find a clean place to ground balance. Been there twice now and haven't found anything that wasn't a bolt, nail, or some other garbage. It's a 90 year old house that's never been MD'd before...got to be stuff there!

 

[IBdiggin]

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[knarfj]

Hey Knarfj, I'm also using a 10' concentric on the F70. Another cool thing about the concentric is if you think of it as an upside down cone with a golf ball sized tip, you can raise and lower it to separate some targets that may be masking others depending on their size.HH

Agreed, I find it especially effective on relatively shallow targets, say 3 inches or less along with audio ID tones.

Another trick one might try. Again, if the targets are shallow and close together, is to use a LOT less gain. I