Regarding F5 depth for coin size targets.

[Mike Hillis]

With some of the negative posts about the F5 and it's depth on coin size targets, I'm going to put aside my jewelry hunting for awhile and go coin hunting, looking specifically for deep coins. I get asked about this all the time and I usually can't answer them very well because that is not what I use the F5 for, nor did I buy the F5 for that purpose.

So I will post under this thread my settings, site conditions and results. For good or for ill.

HH
Mike

 

[Mike Hillis]

I'll add the stock coil results later in the week.
Disregard the reference to the Goldbug as I hid those results. This is a F5 specific thread.

HH
Mike

[attachment 181552 F5Depth.jpg]

 

[BH_Landstar_]

I've have found coins in the 6" - 10" range, but they have been far and few between. This has been with the stock coil and the 5" coil. I've found more with the 5" coil at the 6" - 10" range than I have with the stock coil.

My deepest coins have been quarters at the 8" - 10" depth on ball fields, and the coins are modern clad 1970's - 1980's. Also had a Caped Large Cent at the 7" mark from a field that was farm land at one time, this was found with the stock coil.

I guess it all depends on the ground where some of these people are that seem to be having depth issues with the F5. It could also be user error, ie, settings incorrect for the ground conditions (gain too high or low along with the threshold).

I've found the F5 to be the best metal detector that I've owned so far, not only that, it's the only one that gives me full control of it's settings.

The only flaw I've come accross with the F5 is the 5" coil and silver rings, if the ring is on edge, the F5 does not see it in the silver / quarter range or above, it gives off a reading lower down the scale and at times gives an 'iron grunt' sound or no sound / reading at all.

Maybe you could test this Mike and see what you discover.

 

[Mike Hillis]

n/t

 

[marcomo]

Looking forward to the report, Mike!

 

[Monte]

to hunt several sites to get a good 'feel' for the potential.

If you would, remark on the coil used, settings, used, Ground Phase read-out and the Fe[sub]3[/sub]O[sub]4[/sub] for the ground. We all know there is no single, 'perfect' detector but I'd guess the Fisher F5 ought to do reasonably well, just as the Teknetics Omega does for me.

We will always see certain posts about various models where some don't think they get enough depth, whatever that is. Detectors have their own abilities, but they all come with drawbacks. I enjoy using the White's XLT, for example, and with my three custom programs I can get reasonable depth in most applications, but the lower-cost XL Pro produced the best depth-of-detection. Teknetics T2 is a higher-dollar unit, but for "coin hunting use" the Omega tends to be favored for better Target ID in general, and at depth.

I'd bet that most of those who complain about the F5 and other FTP products are either biased in some way, or they have never used, or never learned and mastered the F5.

So, please report back as you go, and if you have any other detectors on hand to compare signal response and TID prior to recovery, that might be good, too.

Monte

 

[crusher28]

Found this summer with my fisher f5 on a salt water beach and lake beach I think this says it all. plus 308 coins. Settings were GAIN 75 TO 85 THRESH -2 TO + 2 DISM 15. Notice the little silver rings and earrings found them 3-6" deep.
Gold chain was 7-8" deep. Gold rings about 4-5" deep. My point is the f5 will pick up the smallest gold and silver if you take your time and know your sounds and don't always relie on the read out.

 

[Mendo_Bill]

Mike, on Dec. 7th you said:

I'll add the stock coil results later in the week.
Disregard the reference to the Goldbug as I hid those results. This is a F5 specific thread.

With all due respect, and my highest regard for your option I would like to share my dilemma with you and hope you can help!

Please forgive me, but I couldn't wait.
I bought a NEW F5 last week, as a back up to my F75 Ltd. and with the stock coil the results are very pour. Not even as good as my lower end Tek.Delta 4000.

So I cranked Her up to FULL Gain 99 - FULL +9 on the Thresh. - Disc 1. and now we're talking This added 2-1/8" to 2-3/4" to air test depth.

With these settings the F5 left the Delta 4000 (with Max settings) in the dust. But I don't plan on using the F5 with these settings and don't think I should buy a 11" DD coil, as I already have the F75.

I purposely bought the F5 with 10" elliptical coil for the more forgiving ease of (less trash signals) use I thought I would get, and be an upgrade to the Dela 4000 with 8" coil.
If you would post your test results with the stock 10" coil I would be able to decide if my unit is working in the Normal range.

Here's my very embarrassing F5 default settings, stock coil results. Gain 50 - Thresh 0 - Disc.15 "(Quarter 7" Nickle 6-1/4" Dime 6") these are Air Tests only, outdoors, no EMI interference, text book setup, kind-of-a Thomas Dankowski environment.

I have owned Bounty Hunters in the $129.00 - $179.00 range that will pull coins from greater depths. ( So what's going on here?)

Thanks,
Bill P.

ps Don't be timid, I can take constructive criticism.

 

[crusher28]

I have been detecting for over 35 years and still come up with nothing on some days. Always used Fisher detectors 1265,1280, cz6a, the good old 1236 and now the f5 all work good. some are better that others in different places, why?????
I use to blame the detector but found out that as smart as I think I am I found out it was just me doing something WRONG. Depth depends on so many things, ground cond. heat, cold etc.

 

[TellYaWhut]

Speaking of the 10" coil...I have read some good things about it. Compared with the 11" DD gives, so I'm told, only an extra inch deeper. Cost wise seems like it would be better to invest in the 5" DD. Mike your the F5 master and wish you'd write a book on this model...the original owners manual makes the learning curve twice as long. Thanks

 

[BH_Landstar_]

I was looking at getting the 11" DD coil myself, but in the end I decided on the 5" DD coil. I'm glad I did as it's been a great nickel puller in trashy area's. I've yet to find a gold ring with it, but I'm sure that will come in time, infact the last gold ring found (using the stock coil) was about a week before I decided to purchase the 5" DD coil (just before winter started to set it's claws in here in New England).

The 5" DD coil has the depth of the stock coil, maybe a little more, it's also great at the beach in the wet sand. I've not had much time to play with the coil due to the weather and work commitments since I''ve had it, but so far from the results I've had with it I'm pleased with the outcome. I'm looking at getting out this weekend to the beach with the stock coil and the 5" DD to do some tests in the wet sand and water line to see how well each works. Like I said, I've not had much time with the new coil, but it's been worth it's cost with the way it has found nickels and quarters that the stock coil has missed in area's that I've hunted before.

The depth that I get with both the stock coil and the 5" DD has been close to the 8" mark, the 5" DD does seem to be a little deeper seeking, I'll know more once I've done some more tests in the new year.

As for the manual being hard to understand, I did not find that to be an issue !
Learing curve, each person is to his / her own, the time to learn something depends on your ability to understand whats being relayed to you and how fast you pick things up, everyone has a different rate at which they learn / take things in. (E.G .. teaching 2 people to ride a motorcycle, one learns faster than the other, not all people have the same learning rate, others pick things up like it was second nature to them, whereas others need more time to understand what it is that they are doing and to process the info.)

 

[TellYaWhut]

I was looking at getting the 11" DD coil myself, but in the end I decided on the 5" DD coil. I'm glad I did...................


As for the manual being hard to understand, I did not find that to be an issue !
Learing curve, each person is to his / her own, the time to learn something depends on your ability to understand whats being relayed to you and how fast you pick things up, everyone has a different rate at which they learn / take things in. (E.G .. teaching 2 people to ride a motorcycle, one learns faster than the other, not all people have the same learning rate, others pick things up like it was second nature to them, whereas others need more time to understand what it is that they are doing and to process the info.)

I understand what you are saying and for the most part agree. It is possible for an exceptional (fast) student to learn beyond a bad teacher (or a manual full of errors). Though a manual should be an aid to all students, slow or fast. Thanks and good hunting.

 

[Mike Hillis]

Hi Bill.
Your air tests at those 50% settings are compatible with mine using the 4 tone audio mode and the stock coil. They are better in the single and dual tone audio modes.

In one aspect, the F75 and Delta are simpler machines to setup because you only have one "Sensitivity" control. You set that control to some stable setting and off you go. That single Sensitivity control has the gain and threshold settings combined by the design engineer and you get what you get whenever you set it to a particular setting.

The F5 is different, the Gain and Threshold controls have been separated so that you, the user can combine them to best hunt the site conditions and targets you are after. If you need real depth, you crank the Gain and then set the Threshold to support it. If you need it hot on small low conductors, you set your threshold high and then set your gain to support it. You also have to select the audio id mode to support your targets as well. You can't hunt deep coins with the 3 and 4 tone audio modes. You will get greater depth and better audio responses on deep targets with the 1 and 2 tone audio modes. With the 3 and 4 tone audio modes, the deeper high tones will just wash out beyond your hearing. You will get a high tone whisper that has no definition. No ping, no beep, just that high tone whisper that any instability will mask. However, the single or dual tone audio modes on that same high tone whisper will give you a very definable target tone and add inches to your depth. Add the 11" DD coil and the depth increases by several inches.

This is my setup.
If I am hunting coins at depth, I maximize my Gain then stabilize the detector with the Threshold control with the coil "in motion over the ground" and run the single or dual tone audio mode. I try to keep my Gain as high as possible with the threshold as close to 0 as the ground or EMI will let me. But I try not to go lower than a -5 threshold. I'll lower my gain before I'll drop my threshold below a -5. So some balancing has to take place, and again, I'm looking at detector stability with the coil in motion.

If I am hunting gold jewelry (my primary use of the F5) I maximize my Threshold (+5 or higher) then stabilize the detector with the Gain control settings with the coil held motionless and use the 4 tone audio mode. The joy of the F5 for gold jewelry is that the F5 with high positive threshold settings still has bite with low Gain settings.

Hope that helps.
HH
Mike

 

[Mike Hillis]

I'm not going to report depths in this post. I'm reporting on deep coin responses so that you'll know what to listen for. Then you come back and report depths.

The F5 doesn't beep on deep targets. Its not like the CZ that gives a tiny ping. It is not like the CoinStrike that gives its ghostlike beep.

No... the F5, It whispers....It sighs.....It breathes them into your ear through your headphones. EMI and ground chatter will mask them. You won't even hear them without headphones, and you'll easily walk over them if you are not paying careful attention. In the 3 and 4 tone modes, the high tone on deep high conductors is like, what?...how to describe it....a high tone whisper with no definition to it, a sound like a ghost might make if such a thing existed and tried to whistle in your ear, Like a gentle breeze that wafts by your ear for just an instant and is gone.... unsubstantial, like a sigh a deep dime long buried in the earth might make as it dreamed of its days in the hands of men and now mourned in its dark prison....

But yet as unsubstantial as that high tone is, the single and dual tone audio modes will give a definable tone on the same target, more of a beep response than you will hear with the multi-tone high tone responses that will increase potential depth by inches until it too, dissolves away into that unsubstantial whisper of an alert that will faintly caress your ears for that brief instance as the F5 tries to tell you of a secret it discovered deep in the bosom of the earth.

OK..got a little poetic there, but I wanted to describe the deep target responses so they you would know what to listen for.

Got to have a stable detector to hear them. You can't hunt "into the noise" with the F5 and hunt deep targets. The chatter will mask them. It is not a F75 where the real targets will still stand out against the chatter. You have to be stone cold stable or you'll miss them and a high Gain setting is a must for real depth. 90+ and the threshold as close to 0 as you can get it and still have a stable detector.

This was in Discrimination mode. Most of my targets were fringe depth dimes that wafted high tone whispers that I at first thought were iron falses until I started checking them out closer. Makes for fun detecting once you tune your ears.

Hope that helps.
HH
Mike

 

[marcomo]

Excellent advice as always, Mike. Thank you!

I wasn't aware before that you are not only our F5 guru, but our poet laureate as well.

Now I realize what a heroic deed I'm performing by liberating those deep dimes, sadly mourning in their dark prison deep in the bosom of the earth.

 

[Willee - Texas]

Here's my very embarrassing F5 default settings, stock coil results. Gain 50 - Thresh 0 - Disc.15 "(Quarter 7" Nickle 6-1/4" Dime 6") these are Air Tests only, outdoors, no EMI interference, text book setup, kind-of-a Thomas Dankowski environment.

I have owned Bounty Hunters in the $129.00 - $179.00 range that will pull coins from greater depths. ( So what's going on here?)

Thanks,
Bill P.

ps Don't be timid, I can take constructive criticism.

Bill I have tried and used many detectors ... the F5 was one of them.
I was attracted to the analog controls verses the digital menu's.
I bought it knowing full well that it would most likely not perform as well as my Fisher CZ-3D, or my other high end detectors.
I also knew it would not be as sensitive to small gold as a Gold Bug either.
I was not disappointed.
It just dont have the guts of a high end machine and to expect it to act like one is an unreasonable expectation.

However, in real life ... all other things being equal.
If I walked down a beach or across a park first using the F5 and then in the same footsteps using my F75 would I find anything the F5 missed?
Not on the beach ... but possibly in the park because of the F75's faster recovery to iron masking and the few inches of extra depth.

Why would a company offer a detector that performed as good as their high end model and sell it for less than half the price?
Who would buy the expensive one?
If they could make a cheaper detector (less cost to make) perform as good as their most expensive do you think they would still make the most expensive one?
Right now the Fisher F75 series is about as deep detecting dirt machine you can buy.
But there are other factors besides detection depth that makes one detector out perform another in the field.
If the detector is so noisy swinging it in the field that you can not isolate the faint signal of a deep coin then it dont matter if it detected it or not.
If its recovery from iron masking is so slow you never hear that silver dime 3" from a nail ... air testing at 25" dont matter much.

I strongly recommend everyone watch Tom Dankowski's presentation on relic and beach hunting. (available on DVD)
He will explain things a lot of people dont even suspect yet.
I have been using metal detectors since the late 60's and he open my eyes to a lot of things I had never considered.

Most of us already know air testing is a very poor indicator of how deep in the ground a detector will detect a coin.
The FBS and BBS detectors will get their butts kicked buy the cheapest detector made ... in the air ... but not in the ground.

 

[Willee - Texas]

I for got to put this link into my message above.
For some reason I can not edit it.

Here is the link to the DVD:
http://www.srarc.com/&*)(#@!#$%^i.html