I was considering getting the Fisher F70 (and still may) but bought the F5 as I really liked the design of the F5 with it's awesome user interface, ability to ground balance to salt, and the real time ground data display (ground phase, magnetite meter, ground balance, confidence meter). I believe these features are something no other metal detector manufacturer is currently doing, so Fisher is going in the right direction in my opinion.
To test the F5 out I spent a few days at my parents house who live in a community founded in the 1860's built around a large fresh water lake. During the Victorian era it flourished with both lake front resorts, as well as mineral "health" spring resorts, so I thought it would be a great place to test the F5 with a variety of hunting conditions.
Excited to try my new machine out, the first place I hit was the town center from the late 1860's to the 1960's. The first target was a clad quarter about 6" down, properly ID'd with the correct depth indicated. After a couple of hours of finding 1960's and newer coins, as well as a large piece of rusty iron about 8" deep with a coin tone, and a small piece of aluminum roofing/siding also about 8" deep, I was just about to pack it up and try another site, when I hit a small 10' square patch that started producing wheat pennies, along with a few relics (old skeleton key, art deco ink pen top, etc). I was excited to start pulling wheats, hoping silver was close by, but it wasn't to be. The wheats were 1924S, 1929S, 1942S, 1946, 1957D. I hunted several other areas of the park, and no more older coins appeared. The park has had several renovations, so I suspect that the soil has been moved around a lot, except possibly this one spot under an old evergreen tree. To double check the F5, I went back over the wheatie spot with my Sovereign using the 8" Coin Search coil to see if it missed anything, and the only thing the Sovereign found that the F5 didn't sound off on, was a big rusty iron bracket which the Sovereign sounded off with a high coin tone.
Shown on an 1890's map was a Victorian era water front resort (actually built right over the water) close to my parents house, so my next trip was to this spot. I turf hunted for a while and found quite a few modern coins. Then I headed to the beach, and within 10 minutes I found a 1918S Mercury dime about 6"-7" deep in the wet sand. Not far from the Merc I found a broken Victorian era ring with a glass stone. I uncovered several other relics (old brass gas lighting valve, old celluoid pocket knife cover with a metal tag that reads "Endicott Johnson Shoes", etc) and more modern era coins from the area.
The next place I hunted was a friends house built in the 1940's that has a very small yard. Found two clad dimes, and then a 1942 Mercury dime came out of their yard about 4" deep.
Next I decided to try an old swimming hole on the lake. When I was hunting the wet sand beach the machine ran stable, and I was popping out coins left and right. Copper pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters hit really hard (as do lead fishing weights). Found my first Sacagawea dollar about 8" deep. After about an hour of hunting the beach and finding lots of coins, I got a really nice hit. I dug it, and found my first gold ring!!! It's a thin 14K gold young ladies "15 Anos" ring (Hispanic celebration for when young ladies reach 15), it was about 7" deep. Also found was an old "Kastmaster ACME Tackle Co." copper spinner.
I really enjoyed fresh water beach hunting, although currently the lake is having an issue with low oxygen levels (due to low water levels and an infestation of weeds), which is causing the carp to die off. There's thousands of dead and decaying carp littering the shores, and the water it nasty and really stinky, so I decided not to go into the water until that's cleared up. I'll go back to the swimming hole area, although I plan to try my Sovereign with the 12.5" Sun Ray and 15" WOT to look for deep jewelery.
The ground seems to be fairly mild there, and there's little to no EMI, so I was able to run the gain at full strength almost the entire time, with the lowest setting at 9. I was also able to run the threshold at +7 - +9 most of the time, and the machine was stable. Although the machine has three different frequencies you can select, it ran so stable I never had to try it, although I suspect in the Bay Area that will be a useful feature as my Coinstrike has a hard time in some spots with heavy EMI.
The manual states that you can run an audible threshold hum, but I was never able to hear it, even at full threshold. I mainly ran four tones (I'm not positive what advantage you'd have running less?), and ran the disc at 25, to mask iron and small foil.
The ground balance worked awesome. In disc mode I would pump the coil 1" - 6" a few times, and within seconds the ground balance and phase numbers would lock, then simply hit the phase lock button and it was ready to go. I was concerned that its lack of a volume control might be an issue, but it sounded fine through a set of Sun Ray Pro Golds. Actually I thought the audio data was excellent, with the various tones being very distinct (although I'd still like to hear a threshold hum).
The pin-pointing is outstanding. At the loudest audio signal I'd dig a rectangle shaped hinged plug slightly larger then the size of the inner coil oval and (almost) without fail the target was inside, and right around the depth it indicated.
Oddly it had a tough time differentiating between modern pull-tabs and nickels. Often when it would give a good nickel hit, but I would recover a modern pull-tab . That got me thinking that perhaps when it was telling me it hit a pull-tab, perhaps it was really a nickel, so I decided to start digging all pull-tabs while turf hunting. Sure enough, several pull-tab hits were indeed nickels. (Note - checking the manual after hunting indicated that modern pull-tabs do read under nickels, but not vice versa ).
I found that small rusted iron (small'ish rusty nails mainly) would sound off as a good high coin hit (dime/penny or higher).
The manual, although somewhat short, is well written providing good explanations of all the controls, and displays. It provides a lot of technical information about ground balancing, magnetite and how it affects metal detecting, as well as the ground phase and lots of other useful information.
Conclusion:
What I liked - All and all the F5 is a great detector, it's fun, easy to use, light weight and powerful. Powered by two 9V batteries will provide 40+ hours of use. The detector weighs less then 3lbs with batteries, so one can swing all day without fatigue, and the Fisher "S" rod design is also very ergonomic, further contributing to it's usability. The controls are very well laid out, all knobs are easy to thumb, and logically arranged (no menus to fumble through). The large display is easy to read, and provides the user with valuable useful data. The F5 hits hard on coins, and jewelery and it's pin-pointing is first class. The real time ground data display is great, as you can easily see if one has moved into a different type of ground and in 5 seconds can re-balance the detector to match the current ground conditions.
What I didn't care for - When coins or other metal objects (even pull-tabs) are close to the surface, the machine goes into an overload mode. I didn't care for this, as anything from a pull-tab to a coin could be under the coil and the only way to find out what it is, is to dig the target. I can understand if there's a hub cap an inch under the ground, but pull-tabs and coins? It does have a propensity to give false positives on small rusty iron, I need to do further testing on this, as perhaps the threshold can eliminate or minimize this phenomenon.
All finds (over $10.50 in change):
Wheats (1924S, 1929S, 1942S, 1946, 1957D) and Mercs (1918S and 1942D):
GOLD in the hole!
F5 Close-up and 14K Gold Ring:
14K Ring and Victorian Era Partial Ring:
Nice way to end the day:
HH,
Brian
To test the F5 out I spent a few days at my parents house who live in a community founded in the 1860's built around a large fresh water lake. During the Victorian era it flourished with both lake front resorts, as well as mineral "health" spring resorts, so I thought it would be a great place to test the F5 with a variety of hunting conditions.
Excited to try my new machine out, the first place I hit was the town center from the late 1860's to the 1960's. The first target was a clad quarter about 6" down, properly ID'd with the correct depth indicated. After a couple of hours of finding 1960's and newer coins, as well as a large piece of rusty iron about 8" deep with a coin tone, and a small piece of aluminum roofing/siding also about 8" deep, I was just about to pack it up and try another site, when I hit a small 10' square patch that started producing wheat pennies, along with a few relics (old skeleton key, art deco ink pen top, etc). I was excited to start pulling wheats, hoping silver was close by, but it wasn't to be. The wheats were 1924S, 1929S, 1942S, 1946, 1957D. I hunted several other areas of the park, and no more older coins appeared. The park has had several renovations, so I suspect that the soil has been moved around a lot, except possibly this one spot under an old evergreen tree. To double check the F5, I went back over the wheatie spot with my Sovereign using the 8" Coin Search coil to see if it missed anything, and the only thing the Sovereign found that the F5 didn't sound off on, was a big rusty iron bracket which the Sovereign sounded off with a high coin tone.
Shown on an 1890's map was a Victorian era water front resort (actually built right over the water) close to my parents house, so my next trip was to this spot. I turf hunted for a while and found quite a few modern coins. Then I headed to the beach, and within 10 minutes I found a 1918S Mercury dime about 6"-7" deep in the wet sand. Not far from the Merc I found a broken Victorian era ring with a glass stone. I uncovered several other relics (old brass gas lighting valve, old celluoid pocket knife cover with a metal tag that reads "Endicott Johnson Shoes", etc) and more modern era coins from the area.
The next place I hunted was a friends house built in the 1940's that has a very small yard. Found two clad dimes, and then a 1942 Mercury dime came out of their yard about 4" deep.
Next I decided to try an old swimming hole on the lake. When I was hunting the wet sand beach the machine ran stable, and I was popping out coins left and right. Copper pennies, dimes, nickels and quarters hit really hard (as do lead fishing weights). Found my first Sacagawea dollar about 8" deep. After about an hour of hunting the beach and finding lots of coins, I got a really nice hit. I dug it, and found my first gold ring!!! It's a thin 14K gold young ladies "15 Anos" ring (Hispanic celebration for when young ladies reach 15), it was about 7" deep. Also found was an old "Kastmaster ACME Tackle Co." copper spinner.
I really enjoyed fresh water beach hunting, although currently the lake is having an issue with low oxygen levels (due to low water levels and an infestation of weeds), which is causing the carp to die off. There's thousands of dead and decaying carp littering the shores, and the water it nasty and really stinky, so I decided not to go into the water until that's cleared up. I'll go back to the swimming hole area, although I plan to try my Sovereign with the 12.5" Sun Ray and 15" WOT to look for deep jewelery.
The ground seems to be fairly mild there, and there's little to no EMI, so I was able to run the gain at full strength almost the entire time, with the lowest setting at 9. I was also able to run the threshold at +7 - +9 most of the time, and the machine was stable. Although the machine has three different frequencies you can select, it ran so stable I never had to try it, although I suspect in the Bay Area that will be a useful feature as my Coinstrike has a hard time in some spots with heavy EMI.
The manual states that you can run an audible threshold hum, but I was never able to hear it, even at full threshold. I mainly ran four tones (I'm not positive what advantage you'd have running less?), and ran the disc at 25, to mask iron and small foil.
The ground balance worked awesome. In disc mode I would pump the coil 1" - 6" a few times, and within seconds the ground balance and phase numbers would lock, then simply hit the phase lock button and it was ready to go. I was concerned that its lack of a volume control might be an issue, but it sounded fine through a set of Sun Ray Pro Golds. Actually I thought the audio data was excellent, with the various tones being very distinct (although I'd still like to hear a threshold hum).
The pin-pointing is outstanding. At the loudest audio signal I'd dig a rectangle shaped hinged plug slightly larger then the size of the inner coil oval and (almost) without fail the target was inside, and right around the depth it indicated.
Oddly it had a tough time differentiating between modern pull-tabs and nickels. Often when it would give a good nickel hit, but I would recover a modern pull-tab . That got me thinking that perhaps when it was telling me it hit a pull-tab, perhaps it was really a nickel, so I decided to start digging all pull-tabs while turf hunting. Sure enough, several pull-tab hits were indeed nickels. (Note - checking the manual after hunting indicated that modern pull-tabs do read under nickels, but not vice versa ).
I found that small rusted iron (small'ish rusty nails mainly) would sound off as a good high coin hit (dime/penny or higher).
The manual, although somewhat short, is well written providing good explanations of all the controls, and displays. It provides a lot of technical information about ground balancing, magnetite and how it affects metal detecting, as well as the ground phase and lots of other useful information.
Conclusion:
What I liked - All and all the F5 is a great detector, it's fun, easy to use, light weight and powerful. Powered by two 9V batteries will provide 40+ hours of use. The detector weighs less then 3lbs with batteries, so one can swing all day without fatigue, and the Fisher "S" rod design is also very ergonomic, further contributing to it's usability. The controls are very well laid out, all knobs are easy to thumb, and logically arranged (no menus to fumble through). The large display is easy to read, and provides the user with valuable useful data. The F5 hits hard on coins, and jewelery and it's pin-pointing is first class. The real time ground data display is great, as you can easily see if one has moved into a different type of ground and in 5 seconds can re-balance the detector to match the current ground conditions.
What I didn't care for - When coins or other metal objects (even pull-tabs) are close to the surface, the machine goes into an overload mode. I didn't care for this, as anything from a pull-tab to a coin could be under the coil and the only way to find out what it is, is to dig the target. I can understand if there's a hub cap an inch under the ground, but pull-tabs and coins? It does have a propensity to give false positives on small rusty iron, I need to do further testing on this, as perhaps the threshold can eliminate or minimize this phenomenon.
All finds (over $10.50 in change):
Wheats (1924S, 1929S, 1942S, 1946, 1957D) and Mercs (1918S and 1942D):
GOLD in the hole!
F5 Close-up and 14K Gold Ring:
14K Ring and Victorian Era Partial Ring:
Nice way to end the day:
HH,
Brian
