My son has a Garrett Ace 350 and I just got the Fisher F4 yesterday. We will normally be hunting in northern Michigan, but are in Florida on the beaches this week.
I have been reading a ton about the F4 and playing around with the unit since I got it, and am struggling with ground balancing and even with discriminate mode. For example:
I have tried the pump method for GB and can't get the tone to shift when turning the gb knob. The tone doesn't seem to be impacted by turning the knob. To perform this procedure, I turn on the unit, press the auto tune button so that all metal displays (not all metal discriminate), turn down the sensitivity to one or two bars, and then try pumping. I also have no noticed that the threshold buttons have no impact either.
I then tried the pinpoint option and this seemed to work a little better over dry sand, but if I try to gb over wet sand I can't get the tone to calm down. I perform the same steps as above, but instead of pumping, I press the pinpoint button once and let go (pinpoint is displayed on the screen) and perform the technique. After I gb with this method, do I press the all metal button again? After it is ground balanced, it still reads pinpoint if I don't press anything else.
So after working with the above settings, I kind of gave up and just tried discriminate mode by turning the unit on and pressing Disc, keeping the 2 left most iron settings excluded. This seems to work well over dry sand (as expected), but tends to throw lots of false positives even with the sensitivity cranked down. In fact, significantly more false hits than my son's 350. Is this "normal?"
Finally, what is the difference between all metal, all metal discriminate, and just the discriminate button? Are there really one 2 settings - all metal and all metal discriminate with the later being further impacted by tuning of the disc and notch buttons?
I'm sure I will have more questions, but these are the initial main ones.
Thanks in advance!!
Bill
I have been reading a ton about the F4 and playing around with the unit since I got it, and am struggling with ground balancing and even with discriminate mode. For example:
I have tried the pump method for GB and can't get the tone to shift when turning the gb knob. The tone doesn't seem to be impacted by turning the knob. To perform this procedure, I turn on the unit, press the auto tune button so that all metal displays (not all metal discriminate), turn down the sensitivity to one or two bars, and then try pumping. I also have no noticed that the threshold buttons have no impact either.
I then tried the pinpoint option and this seemed to work a little better over dry sand, but if I try to gb over wet sand I can't get the tone to calm down. I perform the same steps as above, but instead of pumping, I press the pinpoint button once and let go (pinpoint is displayed on the screen) and perform the technique. After I gb with this method, do I press the all metal button again? After it is ground balanced, it still reads pinpoint if I don't press anything else.
So after working with the above settings, I kind of gave up and just tried discriminate mode by turning the unit on and pressing Disc, keeping the 2 left most iron settings excluded. This seems to work well over dry sand (as expected), but tends to throw lots of false positives even with the sensitivity cranked down. In fact, significantly more false hits than my son's 350. Is this "normal?"
Finally, what is the difference between all metal, all metal discriminate, and just the discriminate button? Are there really one 2 settings - all metal and all metal discriminate with the later being further impacted by tuning of the disc and notch buttons?
I'm sure I will have more questions, but these are the initial main ones.
Thanks in advance!!
Bill
