huskermaniaman said:
Anybody have a thought on finding nickels versus pull tabs with the f4? They both fall in the same range on my machine. I am tired of digging pull tabs!! And why haven't more people lost more nickels? Just wondered what others thought!!
This is referring to the F2 that I used for over 1000 hours mostly, and I have seen similar behavior on my F70 so I assume it will be the same on your F4.
I figured out how to avoid digging about 80-85% of those tabs...and those would be sta-tabs not the beaver tail types if we are talking about numbers in the nickel area.
I dig all solid signals in this area and have for years because I am always looking for gold.
Keep in mind nickels are the iffyest out of all the coins in the higher ranges.
I have dug them at my exact nickel numbers which on my F2 was a 32, many below that number in the high 20's and even a few higher into the mid 30's.
If you get your coil over them...the center of the coil, nickels should calm down to either a one or no more than a two number jump when you get good at it.
Trash in the vicinity will skew the numbers or could make them jump, coins on edge might also, but more often than not I could get stable numbers with no more than a two number jump most of the time and that would be from at least 2 directions.
Most sta tabs will actually be one or two numbers higher than real nickels most of the time, but not all the time and many will mimic your regular nickel numbers if bent or partial pieces or even complete ones could, also.
About 15-20% of those stay-tabs will act solid and in the same way as good targets, most of the time they would be more shallow and laying flat in the soil and those you just have to dig.
The rest of them, luckily, I have found will not calm down to that two number range, even three, no matter how you maneuver that coil and you will also get completely different numbers from a ninety degree direction.
Another thing I noticed about the behavior of the F2, and there are a few that have a real problem with me telling people this because they don't believe it and never will, is that if you look at the depth bars I noticed that on all good targets like coins and rings, if you can get those numbers to be within that 2 number range the depth bars will also stay stable and not jump.
On most trash, except some of the more stable fool me types, those depth bars always jump and those that want to give me an argument about this can talk to the wind because I have seen this exact same behavior on 3 different F2 units so I hope it works the same on the F4 because it is so similar to the F'2.
The depth bars for me on my F2 were useless when used for their intended purpose, they were always off and I never believed them, but eventually I noticed they stayed stable on good targets and jumped over most trash so I used them as just another indicator to figure out targets instead and for that purpose they worked well.
Using my F70 for the last year I discovered the same behavior when I swing over sta-tabs with any coil, concentric or DD.
80-85% of them will not stabilize to a 2or 3 number jump on constant swift short passes with the center of the coil, tabs will also usually change to different numbers when hit from a different direction, good targets will usually stabilise and will behave the same from any angle if they are not real deep.
Really deep stuff has different rules, but most targets I dig usually hang out at 6" or less in depth and so all of this worked for me for years and since I have dug tons of nickels and way more than my share of gold in the nickel ranges...all the nickel range, and did not dig a lot of trash signals I came across while doing it I continue to use these methods with any Fisher I swing and will until I find something better.
Pure gold advice here, freely given, if anyone takes the time to ask...Great work Gentlemen! Lets all get out and knock down some serious stink with our F-rigs this year just on the principle of the thing! 
