How does the F5 perform at the Beach?

[JKabat]

I bought a sand scoop tonight and I am planning on trying my F5 at the beach tomorrow night. I have both the stock coil and a 5" DD coil. Can I use both in the water? If I want to recover jewelry do I have to plan on digging nearly every signal? Looking for any input pro or con.

Thanks

 

[Mark in NC]

Does awesome in the dry sand and can handle the wet sand if you'll manually ground balance. You're not going to get CZ depth in the wet stuff, but you'll get great depth in the dry.

 

[woodwizard]

have used mine in dry sand and shallow fresh water -mine didn't like the wet sand too much.and yes dig every thing

 

[autopilot42]

The F5 did very well at the beach. It gb about 8 and I had the sen at 70 and the threshold at +1 and it was very smooth. The only time it acted up was when you had swept over a big patch of black sand. The machine seemed more stable at the salt water then in my ground in VA

Take Care
Bob

 

[mackthemack]

i am considering the F5 as my first MD, and I am planning on using it alot at saltwater beaches...
I thought it had automatic groundbalancing? Do I have to groundbalance if I move from the wet sand to the dry sand, or from the sandy area to the grass pathches abow the beach? Like the small park areas around the beach?

ooops.... i thought the whole idea was that this was automatic?

Can someone please clarify.....

Kind regards
MTM

 

[marcomo]

GB ain't automatic, but it's easy. Pump over clean ground and push a button. And you have a constant real time read out of the ground, so you can adjust the GB at any time.

I've used the F5 for over a year and it's a wonderful detector, but as a first detector be aware there is a learning curve that is more than any entry level detector.

Can't tell you about saltwater beaches, I'm inland.

 

[autopilot42]

I agree with Marcomo the F5 is very easy to GB and mine ran real smooth on the Atlantic in NC. The one thing you have to keep in mind is the GB can be considered Auto only to the effect that the machine will do it for you with the phase lock button or you can manually turn the ground balance knob for the GB setting. It is not Auto tracking where the machine tries to adjust on the fly. It takes user intervention to invoke the process. I two was a bit confused when I first read about the F5. None of the F series has ground tracking maybe a future feature. If you read one of Dave Johnson's early post he said it is pretty much a toss up betwee the F75 and the F5 on the beach due to some code that is buried in the F5. I do not have the F75 so I can not speak to that. I think you will be quite pleased with the F5 performance on the beach, a very versatile machine.

Take care
Bob

 

[marcomo]

I agree with Marcomo the F5 is very easy to GB and mine ran real smooth on the Atlantic in NC. The one thing you have to keep in mind is the GB can be considered Auto only to the effect that the machine will do it for you with the phase lock button or you can manually turn the ground balance knob for the GB setting. It is not Auto tracking where the machine tries to adjust on the fly. It takes user intervention to invoke the process. I two was a bit confused when I first read about the F5. None of the F series has ground tracking maybe a future feature. If you read one of Dave Johnson's early post he said it is pretty much a toss up betwee the F75 and the F5 on the beach due to some code that is buried in the F5. I do not have the F75 so I can not speak to that. I think you will be quite pleased with the F5 performance on the beach, a very versatile machine.

Take care
Bob

Now that you mention that, I do remember Dave J. saying the F5 would probably be the better choice on the beach because of some new things they had added to the software...You could probably search posts for Dave J. to find exactly what he said.