Interested in F5

[wassermann]

Hello,

My name is Michal, I'm a treasure hunter from Poland who decided to register here and ask a bunch of questions about Fisher F5. I started hunting some five years ago and I'm focused mostly on 2nd WW and 1st WW small relics, like buckles, buttons, awards and insignia. For five years I've been using a Polish-made detector, quite decently sensitivite to small non-ferrous targets, but lacking good separation capabilities, thus making it sometimes impossible to hunt at thrashy sites effectively. My wife got the mighty Tesoro Cibola 3 yrs ago and has repeatedly demonstrated better results than me. That's why I decided it's high time to switch to another metal detector. I was observing MD market for years and currently I'm choosing between two detectors: Tesoro Vaquero and Fisher F5. I know what to expect from the Vaquero, but would like to hear some opinions on the F5. I hope to find your kind replies helpful, and hope to hear from the F5 expert Mr. Mike Hillis, too I promise, after I will have finally gotten my new detector and gone up the learning curve, to share some of my small treasures with you - either here or on the Tesoro sub-forum, depending on my choice. There are not too many items from Europe shown here, but my friends with Tesoros and Fishers are deadly effective hunters. But none of them has the F5, which I could test myself.

Kind regards,
Michal

 

[Terry in PA]

What I've seen from my F5 is that it's a good little detector. Once you get the hang of the relation between the gain and threshold you can adjust it for any hunting area plus the real time ground read out is something great to know. The depth on the detector is good and on air testing you can get a quarter sized target at 10 inches. Something else to look at is the Teknetics Omega detector which is refined version of the F5 and on the Teknetics forum Andy,NM has a air test on it and it picks up a quarter sized target at 12inches a little more depth then the F5. The air test is also on you tube. The target separation on the F5 is unreal super fast recovery speed between targets. I think you would do very well with it. Also there is a bigger DD coil now out for it which should give it some added depth and also help in bad soil. I have never had a problem with it in bad soil. Hope I helped you out some.

 

[Terry in PA]

http://detectorstuff.com/

Also try this link it has a good review of the F5 on it also.

 

[Mike Hillis]

Hi Michal,

The Cibola uses a factory preset ground balance. If your wife is getting good results with it that means your ground minerals are moderate to mild. To be perfectly honest, a Tesoro Vaquero would be a good choice as 1) you and your wife can share accessory coils and there are several to choose from, and 2) You would have a manual ground balance available for use when you needed it.

With that said, the F5 would be a good choice in those ground conditions and you would have the extra features available that the F5 offers you. You would find that the F5 would be just as sensitive to small non-ferrous targets despite the frequency difference. The response speed is better than Tesoro's and the stock coil eliptical design allows very good target separation ability without having to immediately go to an accessory coil.

1) the multiple tone id options of the F5 give you extra, useful tools to use that once you begin using you find hard to do without.

2) the ground readout numbers and FE0304 graph give you information about ground conditions which help you detemine how you'll need to hunt that particular stretch of ground. The Discrimination mode might not be the best mode to hunt with, maybe a different tone id option is called for, or perhaps a different machine is needed for a particular site. A glance at the F5's console can tell you that type of information whereas you might never know that with another unit.

3) with the F5's ground balance readouts you will always know that your are balanced correctly.

4) you have a couple of extra frequencies for when the electrical interfence gets bad, notches when you need them, and a pretty comprehensive display,
and lastly,

4) the split gain and threshold controls allow multiple methods of achieving optimum stable operation. The gain increases the strength of the target signal and the threshold does a two fold operation; -9 to 0 operates how small or large a target signal needs to be for the detector to respond, and +1 to +9 settings enhance the audio of the weaker signals that exceeded the trigger point. I love this feature.

I will always have a F5. It might not always be the best detector to use for a given target/site combination but it can tell me when I need to use something else, and if I don't have something more suited for the site, it gives me multiple options to try to improve performance.

With all that said, if your ground minerals were real high and the Cibola didn't perform very well, I would not recommend the F5 as a first choice.

Good luck and good hunting,

Mike

 

[wassermann]

Thank you both for your answers. Let me add a few words to give more insight into my expectations.

The fact I've placed the F5 ony my very, very short list was caused by the following features:
- doesn't excess a budget reasonable for me,
- utilizes knobs, which I'm devoted to (and not some Menu/Enter/Up/Down buttons) while having a rich display as well,
- is perfectly designed and seems to offer perfect ergonomy,
- allows for a versatile setup (gain, threshold, grnd bal), depending on site conditions,
- its bigger brothers (F75 & F70) receive high recommendations from my friends

While the F5 remains still very little known in Poland, the opinions I found on the internet are very promising. I have done my homework quite good, and gone through all useful websites, read the report written by Mr. Ellington, the interview with. Mr. Saad and many others. All these allowed the F5 to make it onto the short list, hand-in-hand with the Vaquero.

The Cibola, on the contrary, is a detector which is quite popular between the detectorists here in Poland, and gained the reputation of a deep, sensitive and very effective detector for hunting the small non-ferrous targets. My wife has never experienced any trouble with the factory-preset ground-balance and she is almost always able to use a little of the boosted sensitivity without ground interference. We don't have any soil mineralization problems where we are used to hunting.

I am going to hunt at two different kinds of sites -

Firstly, the trashy ones, like some destroyed buildings hidden in the woods, where good targets are to be picked from between some rusty pieces of old cans and shapeless junk. My detector cannot overcome such conditions, while the Tesoros show their high capabilities. That's the main reason I decided to switch to a new discriminator, which has to offer perfect separation, high recovery speed and be as much immune to iron-masking effect as possible (in this price range, of course). These are the features that most detectors lack more or less.

Secondly, I sometimes go to the sites where there is little iron junk, and the site is generally silent. Most battlefields situated in forests are free from junk, but the targets may be buried deeper. I'll hunt for good metal targets, like buckles and rifle ammo cases, for example. I know that, for such case, the perfect detector would probably be the Vaquero with 12x10" DD accessory coil (but useless in the first scenario, on the other hand). That's why my new detector should not be a shallow one - it must be able to find e.g. a .30 Springfield shell case at some 10-inch depth. The Cibola and Vaquero can do it.

So far I became quite convinced, that the F5 can do great at sepearation and gives a lot of helpful audio & visual feedback.

But I'm eager to know if the F5 with standard coil can offer a similar depth to the Cibola? I wouldn't be too happy to sacrifice too many inches for the separation capabilities. And, after attaching a new 11" DD accesory coil, if they become available at last, how can it compare to Vaquero 12x10" DD? If it comes any close, I'll get it

I have some more detailed questions, but I'll ask them in a separate thread, so they may come in handy for the others as well.

Thank you,
Michal

 

[killi]

so your into that WWII hunting, Im an Irish guy living in munich,last year while hunting east of munichs river isar,i came across loads of ammo cases a few well rusted hand pistols,the place is crawling with the stuff,US forces entered munich at this point,coming from buchloe towards gr

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

The true test is how the new DD works for it. I have the F5 and if I were hunting the way you are I would go with the F75 you will have four coils...it is so fast that you may have a hard time in iron and trash. The F5 is a great back up because of the price it is fast but not like the F75 when it comes to relics

 

[wassermann]

Thanks for the input, Low-Boy. The truth is, I'd rather not spend exactly twice as much money for that little bit of the edge the F75 offers in depth over the F5. Plus, I'm completely into the style of the F5's control panel. And that of F75's, on the contrary, is something I'm definitely going to avoid. Knobs rule!

M.

 

[Low-Boy/LCPM]

Well the F75 has more then an edge I live in the Gold Country and would only hunt with the F5 if I had no other choice with that said it is a nice unit depth is not like the F75. Where is does really well is in parks that are not real trashy.

 

[marcomo]

Depthwise I'd give the F5 a slight nod over the Cibola, but it's close. Being able to see the GB in front of you all the time and making adjustments on the fly is a plus as opposed to the preset GB of the Cibola.

Recovery speed and separation in trash are excellent, but I would really like to use the upcoming 5" DD in the trash, it's very frustrating the way Fisher keeps delaying bringing out the accessory coils.

For the relic hunting you speak of, the F75 is a deeper machine and I'd say a better choice if you can afford the price difference. Like you, I prefer the knobby interface of the F5 over the menu-driven push spots.

The F5 is at it's best with highly conductive coins like silver and copper. Definitely not as good on nickels. I guess it's OK for relic hunting, but it's strong suit is coinshooting.

I love Tesoro detectors and have enjoyed every one I've used including the Cibola. The only Tesoro that will get more depth than the F5 in my experience is the Tejon.

I'd also give Tesoro the edge in build quality.