Different kind of test for the F5

[Justin Case]

I was stuck around the house today, which was too bad because it was a nice sunny day in NW Oregon, so I decided to play around with the F5 in the front yard. Checking the ID's on different coins, rings, tabs, and so forth. I buried a states quarter, PA, I think, and it read a solid 80, and a high pitch sound on the four tone at 4 inches, I'm Ok with that, but I wanted to push the unit some more, but frankly I was to lazy to dig the hole any deeper. The garage door was open and I saw a stack of fire brick half's that had been sitting in my garage for at least thirty years, so they are really dry and really dense. They measure 9 inches long, 4.5 inches wide, and 1.5 inches thick, and weigh 6 pounds, like I mentioned they are dense. You can buy these at any big box building supply, and they are standard for the masonry trade to use for firebox flooring. I sat the quarter on the ground and place one brick over the coin, turned the F5 on with discriminate just one click which eliminates Fe, set the gain to 40, that is about the 10 o'clock position, set threshold to 0, waved the F5 over at about an inch above and was hitting a solid 80. I added another brick, which takes me to three inches, and get a solid 80, add another, now at 4 and half inches, and hit 80 again, add another, now at 6 inches.....nada, nothing, not a beep, chirp, or a how do you do. I turn the gain up to 60 and give it a go, wow! a solid 80 again, I'm getting pretty smug about now, so I add another brick, taking it to 7 and half inches, and ....nada again, I turn the F5 up as high as it will go without turning into Chatty Cathy, which is around 70, still nothing, I slip into all metal, and I get a bunch of signals, ID's jumping all over the place, it knows somethings is there, but I'm pretty sure I wouldn't dig. All in all, I think that is an average out come for single frequency VLF machine, maybe something with a lower frequency might sound off at that depth, but I doubt it would ID correctly, but that is a guess on my part as I don't have one to test against the F5. This test is easily duplicated, and maybe this information can provide an average benchmark to test your detector against.

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

Where I live there is a lot of slate rock with is flat and long. I will take the f75 and f5 get a hit (not good numbers) but remember the F75 uses VDI and tones and are seprate and the f5 uses both but when you stack bricks and you are not in the dirt I am sure this is an apple to apple test. But with three bricks and an 80 is great if you hunt bricks. Air tests and all of the above tests don't mean that much when you throw in mother nature.

 

[Justin Case]

Evidently I didn't make myself clear about this test being different, it wasn't about the F5, or any other particular detector, it was about a standard procedure. Brick is made from dirt, just as slate is made from dirt, just different processes, both offer magnetic wave impedance in accordance to their molecular makeup. The physics are the same, regardless of location, if duplicated properly. Air to air, dirt to dirt, and brick to brick comparisons involve the same math. In the dirt, halo effect, what have you, is mostly marketing mumbo jumbo created by manufactures to mask deficiencies and down play public comparisons. All things being equal, there isn't a lick of difference between any of these digital detectors until you get to the possessor and the software, this is where it becomes like the digital camera market, the more confusion created, the better the marketing opportunities.