F5 information

[markg]

After reading page 4, 5 and 6 in the new World Treasure News 2009 on the Fisher web site
[www.fisherlab.com]
At bottom of page,
I have a question about the F5. Please read the folling carefully.

The F5 is not highly recommended for coin shooting.
The F5 is highly recommended for relic hunting.
The F5 is not highly recommended for prospecting.

Now here is the interesting one
The F5 is highly recommended for beach hunting in wet salt sand (from page 6) now this is over the F75
What do you all think?
Hey there might be something we don't know about the F5.

 

[Bill Ladd]

The F5 is not made for coinshooting?? Maybe that is taken out of context or a misprint, but that's about all the one I had was good for, coinshooting. With a low khz of 6-7, about the same as a "Coinstrike" etc, that's usually a frequency for high conductors. The T2, F70/75...those are the best for relics at 13+khz. After years of using a C$, I saw a big difference right away at how my F75 prototype hit on mid-range relics like buttons & lead.
There are reports that the F5 is good on gold which is surprising...so why would they say NOT for prospecting?? Somethings wierd there. In wet salt sand your looking for gold. Don't make sense....
That's not smart promotion. With the F5 you say, "Great all around unit, good for many applications" or something. What you posted makes it sound like the F5 should only be purchased by a relic hunter or wet sand guy......
HH,
Bill

 

[Dan-Pa.]

Have to agrre with Bill on this post..Remember all you read is not carved in stone and to say a F-5 is not a coinshooter is dead wrong...

 

[iskirkra]

Not for coin shooting!!!! I am new to detecting and have found over 200 coins now in the last 6 weeks with my F5 in areas that have been hunted for years. Nothing really old or very deep, the oldest and deepest was a 1961 penny at 6". The F5 sounds off loud and clear on coins above 6". It concerns me that I am not finding older coins. It may be where I am hunting or lack of experience or not getting deep enough, don't know for sure.

 

[Mike Hillis]

First they publish that awful excuse for a manual, which I sincerely hope has been rewritten, and now mess up on footnotes on publication. People look at these things when making a decision.

Prospecting first. There should be two different foot notes. One for prospecting and one for saltwater beach. The asterisk is for prospecting. The diamond is for salt water. Notice that they didn't even split the foot note sentence apart but lumped them both under the asterisk. My experience confirms that the F5 is indeed suited for prospecting but poorly suited to salt water. The closer you balance to salt the worse the depth.

Coin Shooting. That may be a matter of opinion here and depends on what it's compared too. I personally think it is better for coin shooting than relic hunting because all the fine descrimination range is on the coin side (zinc and up). I think it should have a asterisk here.

Relic hunting. I disagree with the F5 as a relic hunter. No iron resolution to speak of. Shouldn't have a asterisk here.

I wonder if the same person who did the manual took a turn monkeying around with this as well.

HH

Mike

 

[Mike Hillis]

n/t

 

[Dave J.]

The question of how we managed to put such misinformation in print is one I won't get into....... however, at least I can post some better information.

The F5 is an excellent coinshooter. There are machines that cost a lot more which would be regarded as superior on "deep silver". But for other than "deep silver", as a coinshooter it can (overall) hold its own with anything at any price, and will arguably knock the socks off some machines that cost a whole lot more.

The F5 is also an excellent relic hunting machine for its price range. However there are more expensive machines (esp. our F70) which will do just about everything it can, and more.

The F5 has an excellent all-metals "autotune" mode which is suitable for casual gold prospecting. However it is not a machine which someone would likely purchase primarily for gold prospecting, inasmuch as serious gold prospecting generally demands a higher operating frequency. It should do an excellent job on native copper and native silver prospecting; however I don't recall having heard of anyone using it for those purposes. We have a report of the rather similar Teknetics Omega being used for meteorite hunting with excellent results, finding meteorites which the Minelab "big guns" miss entirely. This same customer (whose primary gold machine is the Gold Bug 2) has found the Omega to be a good gold prospecting machine when equipped with the 5 inch DD searchcoil. So

 

[Mike Hillis]

n/t

 

[harpsoft]

Dave,

I'd really appreciate if you could explain the use of the Gain/Threshold for disc mode more definitively. My understanding is that gain is akin to increasing height (amplitude?), and threshold controls "width" or sensitivity to the size of the target. So, if I want to get gold jewelry, I'd want to run threshold high and then increase gain, or if I'm trying to knock out small stuff, I'd back off threshold and run gain hotter.

However, I also saw some mention of adjusting according to ground mineralization. If the soil is more mineralized, back down on gain, use more threshold instead. But, if I'm ground balancing at 50, what does that mean?

Any decent guidelines on the interaction? I really love the usability of the F5. Its easier than detectors with less features.

Joel

 

[Dave J.]

Dave,

I'd really appreciate if you could explain the use of the Gain/Threshold for disc mode more definitively. My understanding is that gain is akin to increasing height (amplitude?), and threshold controls "width" or sensitivity to the size of the target. So, if I want to get gold jewelry, I'd want to run threshold high and then increase gain, or if I'm trying to knock out small stuff, I'd back off threshold and run gain hotter.

However, I also saw some mention of adjusting according to ground mineralization. If the soil is more mineralized, back down on gain, use more threshold instead. But, if I'm ground balancing at 50, what does that mean?

Any decent guidelines on the interaction? I really love the usability of the F5. Its easier than detectors with less features.

Joel

Joel, you seem to have a good intuitive understanding of gain and threshold.

The ground balance setting relates to the kind of minerals in the ground, not their amount. However, in general you won't get low ground balance numbers unless the amount of magnetic mineralization is fairly low.

--Dave J.

 

[Mike Hillis]

n/t

 

[Mr.Bill]

n/t

 

[Fatdaddy76]

Hello, just wanted to throw this in. I purchased an F5 about 2 weeks ago and received it last week. I have never metal detected before and I spent about 3 weeks prior to my purchase doing research, reading reviews, info, watching videos and reading forums. I had $400 - $600.00 to spend and I didn't want to go with a cheap machine or an expensive one for being a first timer (and I have noticed some very expensive machines, never knew they could get that pricey), after all that I had went with the F5 and have been very pleased. This is my 8th day with the F5 and have found about 24 penny's, 8 quarters, matchbox cars, wire, zippers, belt buckles, buttons, beer tabs/cans, 9 dimes, a Diamond/Gold Ring (friend had lost it two years ago in her yard and wanted me to check, got between 28-34 for an ID and pinpointed 2-3

 

[marcomo]

Jeff- The good news is the F5 will keep getting better as you learn it better.