New F5 user with a question about readout.

[TheDoctor]

When using the fisher F5 for jewelry hunting, is there a chart somewhere that would give me a rough number for a gold ring or other types of jewelry? I am looking for something that might help me decide when it's time to dig.
What about the best settings on the F5 for finding jewelry on a beach or a park?
What is the best way to interpret the tones? Which tone mode is best for jewelry?

Thank you in advance!
Allan

 

[IBdiggin]

Any repeatable signal is a good one. I swing the F70 but all the F series detectors have a related language so the tips should still apply. I'm sure some F5er's will be along shortly to chime in.
You need to dig trash related numbers to get gold and other jewelry other than silver. Small gold will fall into the lower 20 numbers like foil. Bigger gold falls in tabs and nickels all the way up through to silver. The question you have to ask yourself is weather that number or tone is repeatable? I mean no more than 2 or three number variation and an exact re-occurring tone. Some corroded zinc pennies will vary quite a few numbers and tones but generally good coins don't usually vary more than 2 or 3 . As you pass by a target the tones and numbers can change depending where in proximity your coil passes by. Many times I will use the detectors pin pointer to make sure I am exactly over the target. I will get more exact information that will suggest if the target is trash when directly over it. What I call a fart or a mixed in lower tone is usually a dead giveaway that you have just busted a lying piece of trash that couldn't keep it's story straight. Rusty iron is very good at first trying to trick you into thinking a nice high tone target is near. Using a 90 degree crossover scan can help expose these. Use very little discrimination at first so you can tell the iron is there mixed in with these false high tone. You are the only one who can decide weather to dig or not. You need to dig repeatable signals in the trash sector to get the gold and also to learn your detectors language. A detector is a good one only if you have the patience to learn it before you get discouraged and give up on it. The chart showing the jewelry range is in fact right on the face of all F series detectors. It starts at foil and ends at high silver. Not much help I know but treasure is everywhere in the spectrum and that is why they call it hunting.
Hope this helps---------IB

 

[Hightone]

IBdiggin is right on the money. Even the higher freq machines aren't going to find gold better, just a better chance at getting those small gold nuggets.

Gold rings have showed up mostly under tabs for me. But the signal still moves between foil and zinc. All detector segments are based on coin sized objects, and the makeup of the metal. The confidence meter helps somewhat. If it's confident it's a tab, it usually is. Same with zinc (penny). If it just can't decide with high confidence what segment to place the target in, I always dig it. Because there is no defining a gold ring or jewelry, since they are not a standard size (like coins).

 

[TheDoctor]

Thank you for the tips, I will put them to good use this weekend. I was thinking about building a box and filling it with soil and practicing with jewelry, tabs and coins, I thought that it might help me get the feel of the machine.

 

[MarkCZ]

Well, higher frequency machines do respond better to lower conductors, like Gold, but! they also get stronger responses in the other conductors in that range, pull tabs, Nickels, and so on. My Tejon will hit a mans Gold Ring, a Nickel, and a Pull & Toss tabs stronger and deeper than a Silver Half Dollar!! or a Silver Quarter. My lower frequency detector (7khz) doesn't do this, it hits at much closer to the same response level on lower conductors, but the Silver Quarters and Halves gets a little more response and improved depth. That's been my experience thus far.

But, Gold rings will hit anywhere from upper foil, to Zinc penny range! Size and or mass of the ring and its karat 10k/12k/14k spreads them over a very wide ID range. Meaning, if your a land hunter and looking for gold jewelry plan on digging a lot of can slaw, tabs, balls of foil, Zinc Pennies, and whatever else is in that range that's junk, I almost forget, Nickels.

Mark

 

[IBdiggin]

Hey Doc-----The thing you should know about coin gardens is they don't work as well as natural ground. Seems they need to be seasoned by being in the ground like years---something to do with the mineralization leeching into the soil causing an aura. Depth reality will be much less with a newly seed garden-----------Hope this helps----IB

 

[Hightone]

Halo Effect

Gold doesn't have a halo effect according to Dave J.

 

[IBdiggin]

Did not Know that but it makes perfectly good sense since corrosion causes the effect and gold does not corrode. ---------IB

 

[MarkCZ]

Hey Doc-----The thing you should know about coin gardens is they don't work as well as natural ground. Seems they need to be seasoned by being in the ground like years---something to do with the mineralization leeching into the soil causing an aura. Depth reality will be much less with a newly seed garden-----------Hope this helps----IB

I have found that unless a new way is done to bury the coins in test gardens anything deeper than 4" gets iffy. I've got two 7" Nickels that is going on two years that still don't act right, I think in all metal I could get them to hit pretty good, but coin hunting I never hunt in that mode. I had a six inch garden that never worked right even after three years, I just dug it up and re-planted it in another location, that's been well over a year ago and its still not working. In an owners manual that came with a Whites metal detector I had at one time, it stated that the problem with test gardens was the "Ground Matrix" gets disrupted.

My brother Ron and I both have tried to think of a way to plant the gardens with a greater level of success. Now, he came up with the idea of digging a small hole down to the depth you want the coin, but not put the coin in the bottom of that hole, but rather at the depth you want the coin slip or press the coin in the undisturbed soil beside the hole and push it over a bit. Then fill the hole back in. As of yet this is an untested process.

Now I have an 8" garden which has a Lager cent and an Indian Head penny that is now going on over three years, for some reason its worked the best, but now that I've let the grass grow over the grave sites that's lifted the coil some more and the coins are just getting hard to reach with the detector due to them probably being over 9" from the coil and over 8" of that in the soil. In this same garden at one time It had a silver half dollar, but after some time I got concerned about it and maybe something happening to it so I dug it up and re-thought the 8" deep idea and I replaced it with a clad half at 7" and that's been well over a year ago and nothing much that I have will hit the 7" half?? (again I think I could using all metal mode)

The 8" garden does the best, but 8" was a bad choice of depth because I measured actual 8" of dirt! then didn't count for the normal range of grass growth on top of that. Now, if my area had less EMI and I could run full throttle then 8" depth wouldn't be such an extreme, but the 8" of dirt, a couple inches of grass, limited range of sensitivity and threshold control makes the 8" to deep to reach.

Doing this over I would not go past 7" of dirt,
I would not dig the dirt from over top of the planted targets, I would dig and side mount them. (even doing this they may still have to season some)
I wouldn't fool with a 2" garden, or a 3" either, just use air testing for that range.
I would plant a 4" garden.
The other thing that I would recommend doing is cleaning the ground of other metal around the garden. That way you will have the best! conditions to test out detectors, No! in the real world your not likely to ever find such conditions, but if your testing a detector and it won't perform in the best conditions, then its performance is going to improve in worse condition. But! at this point at depths beyond 5" in test gardens I've not been able to create even as good of a condition that's found in the normal real world bad conditions!.

Mark

 

[MarkCZ]

In areas where silver comes out of the ground shiny it doesn't halo either.

Mark