F5 PinPointing Help???

[SkipSC]

Occasionally when I have detected a possible coin or relic, during pinpointing, and I have located the highest pitch tone representing dead center, the screen goes to all lines (dashes) on the left, right and center and the pitch starts "screaming". Is this telling me that it is now identified as trash??? I can't find anything in the manual referencing that. Gee, what a surprise.

And... I also find at times when trying to ground balance, no matter where I check the ground, I am getting noise. I know setting the ground balance requires finding a "quiet" spot. Do I have one setting or another to high and need to adjust something to find an area that is quiet? What I have been doing to alleviate this is I just go ahead and balance the ground with the noise. Then I pinpoint again till I find a quiet spot which is usually easy, then ground balance again. UGH

 

[Woodchuck]

The two big dashes are metal overload,ground balance is a piece of cake watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qae9rU5i_9o Bill Ladd F5 Video

 

[Woodchuck]

Here is some more info on Ground Balancing in general Ground Balancing Your Metal Detector
On to actually ground balancing your metal detector! I am going to try to keep this as simple and easy to follow as possible. I am also going to let you know up front that ground balancing your metal detector improperly can produce negative results, yes lost depth instead of gained depth. Again don't get discouraged! Practice makes perfect.

Lets begin setting your metal detector up to be ground balanced. The first thing you will want to do is put your metal detector in all metal mode. This will probably be required by your metal detector to manually ground balance it.

You should now adjust your metal detectors threshold. A basic rule of thumb here is to keep it at an just audible setting. Turn it down until you can no longer hear it, then start bumping it up until you begin to hear the faint humming in the background.

You are now ready to start ground balancing your metal detector. To do the actual ground balancing you must find an area void of any metal items or structures, such as fences. Making sure there are no metal objects in the soil where you will be ground balancing is important. Remember the act of ground balancing is actually just discriminating out and ignoring minerals found in the ground. You do not want your metal detector to ignore anything but the minerals found in the ground that you will be metal detecting.

Its time to start the actual process of ground balancing your metal detector. Obviously you need to know where the adjustment is on your metal detector. Locate the adjustment knob, or menu on your metal detector. If you can not find it look in the manual that came with your machine. It should be labeled "ground balance" "ground compensation" "ground", or similar. The knob or menu itself will allow you to adjust positively and negatively. Once you have it located move on to the next step.

This is where a trained ear comes into play. Remember the threshold you adjusted just a few steps back? With complete attention on the steady background hum, (your threshold), hold the search coil of your metal detector above the ground by about 2 feet. Now lower your metal detectors search coil to the ground paying absolute attention to the sound of the threshold! What happened? Did the threshold go silent, or fade? Did it jump or get gain in intensity? If the threshold went dead, or faded you should now bump your metal detectors ground balance adjustment in the positive direction. If the opposite happens knock it down just a hair.

Repeat the above step until your metal detectors threshold remains steady when going from air to ground. You will eventually form your movements, speed and style for this process though the basics should always remain the same!

There you have it, you now know how to manually ground balance your metal detector. Practice until you become a master of manual ground balance and I will assure you that you will start to notice yourself finding deeper and more valuable targets.

 

[Mike Hillis]

Hi Skip,
Woodchuck is correct. Those dashed lines and screaming is an overload signal. Doesn't necessarily mean you are over trash, just that the target is too big and/or to close to the coil for a target id. When you get those, just raise your coil a little and recheck. I've found several nice pocket knives checking out those "Overload" signals, so don't just pass them over as trash.

When you are trying to ground balance, your initial ground balance setting may be so far off that all the ground responds as a target. Everywhere you try to bob the coil, you get a tone when the coil approaches the ground or leaves the ground. This will happen a lot if you were hunting a wood chip play ground and then move to the turf. When that happens just go ahead and pinpoint and see if you get a screaming target. If the pinpoint doesn't scream, then go ahead and ground balance in that spot, then double check it by bobbing the coil with the pinpoint activiated in another spot.
HH
Mike

 

[NE Digger]

its extremely easy to Gb the 5. you CAN do it manuallly...but certainly do not have to. Just find a clear piece of ground with the PP, press and hold the phaze lock pad....and bob the coil from about and inch to maybe 5-6 inches off the ground. You can easily see the Phaze number and Gb number match as you bob it. After they match...........just release the phaze button WHILE bobbing it. If you release the pad after you stop bobbing, it will not be accurate. You dont even really have to find a clean piece of dirt, as if your over metal.......the Gb numbers will be way different than usual for the spot you in. I usually just hold that pad..........and kinda move that coil back and fourth till I get a number( or close to) that I expect. then I bob over that spot till its balanced. this works well in an area where it kind of hard to find a clean spot.
I've found that the phaze lock is just as accurate as doing it manually. The only time I "might' do it manually, if if I'm hunting in all metal........or need to bias the Gb positive or negative.
the only nice thing about doing the Gb in autotune is that you get an audio confirmation of the GB.

Here is a link to fishers site with some other Fisher machine vids.


http://www.fisherlab.com/hobby/video.htm

 

[SkipSC]

A big thank you to all of you for taking the time to give me some very valuable pointers and instructions. I will print them out and practice tomorrow. I am heading to Charleston, SC on Saturday for the Civil War Show and to do some hunting. Your taking the time to help me out should help my finds considerably. I just replaced the original set of batteries on my F5, so I am guessing I have about 40 hours learning the machine. I have a real nice collection of Civil War Bullets and at least fifteen dollars in clad coins since getting the F5. Happy hunting, Skip