F5 questions..

[BRYANT1969]

I have an F5 with 11" coil.. I have been using it for a few months now.. what are the best settings to find silver and gold? I have found two pieces of silver and a few wheat penny's but that's it.. My settings now are threash hold is at -1, dis is at 25, and gain is all the way. Is this my best bet? My husband and I have been searching and old Nursing home that used to be a polio home for children. He has a garret and he has found more than I . I think he is just the lucky dog! Any suggestions or tips I can use? Thanks, Maria

 

[mojotrout]

Hello Bryant,
I am a new F5 user as well-- only two weeks into learning the thing. From what Ive read and what Ive experienced, I would suggest the following:

Your Disc might be a bit too high. I have not turned mine up past 5 at any point so far.

If you re maxing the Gain, do NOT bury the knob as far clockwise as it will go-- I have read that you will lose a good amount of depth this way. Just turn it until you get to 99 and stop. I personally hunt at 90-95 just to make sure i don't inadvertently bury the knob all the way while hunting.

If you're hunting with a partner and he "detects" something, go over and see how your machine responds to his target before he digs. If the F5 doesn't pick it up, mess with the disc/threshold/gain setting to see if you can get it to. Note the tone and the VDI number too. See if you can get both machines to agree on what it is based on tone and number.

I have read that the F5 will lose tone quality on deep targets if in the 3 or 4 tone mode. The 1-2 tone mode performs better.I have not expereinced this yet, but I also havent retrieved any items more than 7 inches or so.

From what I have read, optimal settings for gold are very different than the optimal settings for silver. That doesn't mean you cant find both with a single setting, only that the machine works better for each metal individually than it does in a "catch -all" setting.

Finally, there is a compilation of posts and reviews of the F5 put together by "Sven" here on this forum. I'm sure there is a link to it somewhere in the last 2-3 pages of posts here. In it, Mike Hillis and other f5 users have described their techniques in great detail and I have found this very useful in learning this machine.

Hope this helps. Don't let a Garrett user out-hunt you!

 

[MarkCZ]

Silver targets of any size will come in MUCH higher in the ID range than Gold.
Most Gold jewelry that is average in size is going to come in around the foil to the tab range, so if your hunting for Gold jewelry your going to be digging those junk items in that range.

This may help you some as well, don't run MAX sensitivity if your not hunting really deep targets. Now this will depend on the area your hunting and how old it is and what you are really looking for. A lot of jewelry hunters don't try and hunt deep, they may concentrate on the surface to maybe 4" or so which would mean you may not need to run really hot settings. This will get you good depth and more stability.

If your looking for Gold Jewelry you have to run a low enough discrimination to open up the range that most of it falls into.

Next is the ability to pick locations that are the most likely to have lost jewelry, some people seem to have more of knack of doing that better than others.
Another gift that helsp in the search for Gold is "Patients" digging hundreds of trash targets and hundreds of clad coins to find the Gold is an exercise in "Patients".

Believe me they are a HEAP of treasure hunters that just can't take much of the trash, a good number of them are coin hunters and the coins they are looking for are SILVER! these guys (gals) may go out and buy an E-Trac and set it up just for SILVER. Silver coins hits very high in the discrimination range, in fact larger silver coins will MAX out the range.

Mark

 

[John LA]

Turn the Threshold to +5, then turn gain to where chatter or interference just begins. Turn gain down just a hair if needed.

 

[Dan-Pa.]

This may help....if you get a number on the screen that really jumps around its usually a rusty round thing..coins for the most part give a solid one or three number jump at best and many a steady one digit number....If you after gold rings 1/3 of the gold rings lost are usually thin womens rings some with nice stones and they all come in at the foil range...Garrett along with other outfits make good detectors and me-thinks experience is beating you not a particuliar detector..In the search area type in Mike Hillis as its a lot of competent F5 data...If your not after super depth the stock coil usually handles that rusty round thing much better...especially if your hunting an area with a lot of rusty bottlecaps...

 

[knarfj]

Here is a little insight I learned while using my F-5. And I believe one will find the following applicable to varying degrees with many other detectors.

As an example let

 

[stilpony]

Awesome info! I sure hope this thread stays alive with more good advice!

Knarfj, I was doing just what you described, and now run my disc at around 9.

Thanks for all the great tips, guys!

HH
Jake