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Important beginner tip

B

Brewsir

New member
My Fisher F5 has been gathering dust for a while. I decided it was time to get it back out, and have another go at it. Wish I'd done it sooner, it be HOT down here in southeast Texas. Anyway, I didn't have much success the first go around, and decided if I was going to do any good, I needed to read up more this time. I feel like I did enough research prior to choosing the F5, it's a fine machine. Usually when I get something like that, it only makes me want to upgrade to something with more bells and whistles. However, for me, the F5 is near perfect. Upgrades are generally going to mean going through menus, which seems like a pain to me. I like being able to instantly adjust about anything I need to, on the fly with the F5. My only wish would be for a backlit display, but, since I'm apparently not smart enough to do my thing in low light conditions, it's a minor niggle. Back to the point I was trying to make. I started reading and re-reading as much as I could take in. Forums, beginner tips, Mike Hillis "Bible" (downloaded, printed, and in a 3 ring binder). I began to wonder if a new fancy shmancy coil would help me out, and as I searched the forums on whether to try a new coil, I ran into a Mike Hillis post on that very subject. He said something to the effect of, 1st a good set of Headphones, which I have, 2nd A GOOD PINPOINTER and that's the tip that changed my whole detecting world, and the one I want to reiterate if you're new to metal detecting. If you're like me, and you bought your detector from some place like KellyCo, you, like me, more than likely got a bundle of "Valuable" accessories included in your purchase, including the crappiest pinpointer ever made. I suppose my mindset was, that if I buy another pinpointer, knife/hand trowel, case etc., then I didn't get near as good a deal as I was made to believe. Screw that, my mindset should have been, "get accessories at least equal to the quality of the detector I JUST DROPPED HALF A GRAND ON!" (dummy) I did a bit of research, and ended up purchasing the Deteknix Xpointer. I was a bit worried as I did read several "skeptical" reviews, but, I also read many favorable reviews, and since money's tight, I took a chance. I couldn't be happier. I got the most coins ever in one hunt today. After pinpointing with the F5 on several coins, if I noticed a depth of less than 3 inches, I decided to see if I could pinpoint even more precisely with the Xpointer, and I could, and did ;) It was night and day with this pointer. And that was on the least sensitive setting. I was able to dig smaller plugs, and get to the coin way faster, and I mean WAY FASTER. So, less work, less mess, less disturbance, much faster acquisition, more success. I mean, I've had digs using my old craptastic pointer, where I just gave up on finding whatever was in the hole. Now, I know many of you old hands are thinking, "duh", but, for me, until I saw Mikes post, I just didn't realize just how important a good pinpointer was. I read the forums, and most of the posts are about finds, or coils, or which machine to buy or upgrade to, or anything but pinpointers. Thank you Mike Hillis! I'm back in the game! And if you're a frustrated newby like I was, chuck that pos pinpointer you got in the bundle, and get yourself a REAL pinpointer. Now, I need to go find that post again and see his tip #3 :)
 
Brewsirs, there have been tons of hosannas to the pinpointer on the various sub-forums here ever since the first serious quality handheld pinpointer, the original Garrett Pro Pointer, came out back in 2008.

You'd probably be surprised to know how much attitudes have changed since then.

When I got my first Pro Pointer in 2008, I raved about it just like you did here. Most of the responses to my post were negative, primarily giving the opinion that a pinpointer was an unnecessary frill. A lot of "I don't have one and don't need one" type responses. But it didn't take long for attitudes to change as word got around about how much easier and faster they made retrievals.

I wasn't detecting way back when for the invention of the VLF detector, but I consider the advent of the quality pinpointer the biggest leap forward in metal detecting since I started anyway.

I'd speculate that the reason you never read anything about pinpointers was because you probably have been spending your time primarily on a Fisher forum since that's what detector you use. And the Fisher F-Point pinpointer is a piece of junk equivalent to the Kellyco freebie. Nobody ever talks about it except to say how worthless it is. I'm not sure that they even make it anymore.

You were wise to look up Mike Hillis posts. He was the master of the F5, although to the best of my knowledge he doesn't use it anymore.
 
marcomo said:
I'd speculate that the reason you never read anything about pinpointers was because you probably have been spending your time primarily on a Fisher forum since that's what detector you use.
Click to expand...

Ding ding ding, we have a winner. 1 track mind, "it's all about the detector". I'd focused in on Mike Hillis' posts, even before I purchased the F5, he was a good part of the reason I got one, and yeah, I noticed the F5 no longer in his sig. I actually did spend some time looking specifically at posts regarding pinpointers, because I knew I needed one, I just didn't know how bad I needed one. Posts regarding pinpointers tended to be about which one to buy, and how well or not, they worked, not how important a good one was. Apparently that goes without saying, among those "in the know". The one I got bundled wasn't a fisher. I think it was a no-name. If I were to relate it to cars, everyone else was driving Camaros and Mustangs, and I was driving a smoking Nash Rambler station wagon. ;)
 
Brewsir : Something else you can use your pinpointer for is finding recently dropped jewelry. Start off with holding hour f5 about 4 inches off the ground and once you get a hit you can drop down with your pinpointer and quickly local the target that is close to the surface. You can cover a lot of ground with this method and you don't really even need to dig. A lot of this stuff is in reach of a good pinpointer after you have got it located with the main detector. I've also got the f5 and like you I'm well pleased with it's performance. I'm basically a silver hunter but once in awhile I'll do the surface hunting for jewelry.
 
Thanks SL52, I will try that. I was just talking to a childhood friend that has an F75, and he may have made a liar out of me. I'm thinkin', maybe I DO want to upgrade :drool: It'll be a while, but, the seed has been planted.
 
My brother is SL52 and I run a F75, and I have give up hunting behind my brother with his F5. He doesn't miss much, so I would give the F5 a A+.

That method of hunting SL52 was talking about is what we use when it is really hot and dry, to the point you can't really dig without making a mess. We also detune the heck out of our detectors so it will not be picking up a lot actually in the ground. So this way we can still hunt and not damage the park, I will add this, we find stuff and as brother SL52 said we can cover lots of ground this way.

Ron in WV
 
I consider a pinpointer an extension of the detector itself. To make detecting with it even more productive I've stuck mine on my F5 with the holder that some dealers sell. It works very well and makes it available in an instant with zero chance of losing it. It's always well in view right underneath the box. It adds a little weight but that's OK.

Like you I wish that the F5 had a back light. I have it on my F44 and use it quite often at dawn or dusk. I also wish it had iron audio and perhaps some form of boost process like the Omega 8500. Maybe it's in the works at First Texas but I doubt it. Oh well, the simplicity of the F5 has its charm. To add a few things to it would probably mean delving into menus.
 
I use two pinpointers. One is my old Black Garret that works well for coin sized targets in the park. Its not too sensitive. My other pinpointer is a White TRX which is deep. It tends to false and go nuts in a trashy park hole lol. Thus why I use my old Garret. Both are great pinpointers and my buddy is always borrowing them even though he owns a Old Garret. Some pin pointers are better than others, I wont trash the ones I would never buy. But dont go cheap on a pin pointer as it will make your hunts worse instead of better. Old timers will not use a pinpointer and they will dig 3 times you do. But in my case, I hate spending too much time in a hole when I could be digging another hole. Count your holes per hour and then your good find against bad finds. You also mentioned reading the manual. There is a running joke in my house. If all else fails, read the manual. I will be honest, after 4 years of using a F75 I still find new ways to use it and have to read the manual.
 
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