Seeing that summer is here, and everyone is heading to the beach, this is the time to be on the beach with a good working detector. "Highlight the Fisher F4".
I know it sounds strange with all the other detectors around, that one of the low/mid-priced Fisher units would be recommended for salt beach detecting. I can't recall a detector that operates so smooth in the salt sand, wet or dry as the F4. Now with that said I better clarify a few things about how to set it up for the salt beach. When I was field testing the prototype F4, I was on the beach quite a bit with it. The first thing I noticed was I could turn it on in the parking lot heading to the beach, sweep it across the beach, straight into the waters edge without any problems. I did find a few thing you can not do with it while using it there.
On the F4, it has manual ground balance. The GB is only in the all metal mode. It is at a fixed ground balance in discrimination. Trying to GB in all metal with be very tough to imposable to do. Running it in all metal mode will have the same results, bad. Running it in the discrimination mode, and it's a silent as a church mouse. So forget about using anything but discriminating mode to hunt salt beach's.
Set the disc. up in the default mode. If your down on the wet sand, and you get a little chattering while sweeping, increase the discrimination control to just eliminate the affects of the salt. Salt is a conductive target, not a mineralization problem. If you treat it as a un-wanted target, and disc. it out, things will work better. Don't raise discrimination any higher than necessary to cancel the affects of the salt. This setting should be above iron rejsct for the most part.
I have used the F4 a lot on the damp/wet sand, and into the salt water without much falseing at all. I was also running the sensitivity at maximum at a lot of times. One thing I have to mention, you Can Not Use Pinpoint. Pinpoint puts it in the all metal mode, the detector looks at the salt as a huge target, and reports as same.
So if you happen to own a F4, (and the F2 works quite well there), don't be afraid to take it to the beach with you. Give it a try. Good luck.
Mr. Bill
I know it sounds strange with all the other detectors around, that one of the low/mid-priced Fisher units would be recommended for salt beach detecting. I can't recall a detector that operates so smooth in the salt sand, wet or dry as the F4. Now with that said I better clarify a few things about how to set it up for the salt beach. When I was field testing the prototype F4, I was on the beach quite a bit with it. The first thing I noticed was I could turn it on in the parking lot heading to the beach, sweep it across the beach, straight into the waters edge without any problems. I did find a few thing you can not do with it while using it there.
On the F4, it has manual ground balance. The GB is only in the all metal mode. It is at a fixed ground balance in discrimination. Trying to GB in all metal with be very tough to imposable to do. Running it in all metal mode will have the same results, bad. Running it in the discrimination mode, and it's a silent as a church mouse. So forget about using anything but discriminating mode to hunt salt beach's.
Set the disc. up in the default mode. If your down on the wet sand, and you get a little chattering while sweeping, increase the discrimination control to just eliminate the affects of the salt. Salt is a conductive target, not a mineralization problem. If you treat it as a un-wanted target, and disc. it out, things will work better. Don't raise discrimination any higher than necessary to cancel the affects of the salt. This setting should be above iron rejsct for the most part.
I have used the F4 a lot on the damp/wet sand, and into the salt water without much falseing at all. I was also running the sensitivity at maximum at a lot of times. One thing I have to mention, you Can Not Use Pinpoint. Pinpoint puts it in the all metal mode, the detector looks at the salt as a huge target, and reports as same.
So if you happen to own a F4, (and the F2 works quite well there), don't be afraid to take it to the beach with you. Give it a try. Good luck.
Mr. Bill
