Stupid F5 Tricks :hot:

[Cal_Cobra]

Thought I'd compile a list of F5 tips/tricks that others may find useful. Please feel free to add additional F5 specific tips/tricks.


1) Pumping the coil over a pull tab or deep rusty iron that sounds off like a high coin tone - Pump the coil and watch the Fe304 meter, if it raises, it's almost always (always in my experience) junk/rusty iron, if it stays the same, or goes down, DIG!

2) Forget the GB method in the manual! I don't know how many iterations of the F5 manual exist, but in my manual it has this long drawn out explanation on ground balancing, positive or negative ground, blah blah blah. Just pinpoint a patch of ground that's void of metal, put the coil on the ground, push the "phase lock" button and start pumping the coil 6"-12", after the ground balance and phase numbers sync, your done. Easy as pie.

3) You cannot set the F5 for zero disc while in discrimination mode, BUT you can click into AM mode, and slowly click back into disc mode, and as soon as it clicks into disc mode, it'll read disc 0. Does this really help ? That remains to be seen at this point. I ran in zero disc for several hunts, and it's amazing how much iron is in the ground as evidence by the grunting. Interestingly when your in AM mode, it is showing disc 0, so it may have the same affect in disc mode but with tones. Needs further testing.

4) The F4 DD coil works fine on the F5 (no reduced depth), BUT the pinpoint is funked up (DD's are always a bit funky on pinpointing anyhow, but even more so in this situation). If you use the X method of the tip of the DD coil it pinpoints fine.

 

[ziphius]

Hey, how did the weekend hunt with the F75 crowd go? - Jim

 

[Cal_Cobra]

I hunted an old naval base that's getting pretty hunted out, but if you can get to the right spots, there's still promise. I found a neat pre-1905 Naval Officers large button, a wheat, the usual clad and the obligatory trash. I'll try to get a pic up tonight and see if anyone can confirm the date on the button. Silver seems to be scarce there, haven't seen silver from myself or anyone else I've hunted there in over a year.

Brian

 

[mascard1]

So where is this old naval base?.....there has to be something in sac?.....are you around here?

 

[marcomo]

Nice post, Brian. The complete opposite of the subject title...

The coil pump with the Fe3O4 meter sounds like a great trick to not dig those false coin tones, I'm looking forward to trying it.

You said if the meter goes up on the pump it's "almost always" rusty iron or junk. Does that mean you remember a time or times when it wasn't?

 

[Cal_Cobra]

The complete opposite of the subject title...

A play on Lettermans Stupid Human tricks

The coil pump with the Fe3O4 meter sounds like a great trick to not dig those false coin tones, I'm looking forward to trying it.

You said if the meter goes up on the pump it's "almost always" rusty iron or junk. Does that mean you remember a time or times when it wasn't?

Not that I can recall, but I haven't been digging them since my first couple of tests, so it's more of a disclaimer. YMMV.
Someone else on here was trying to use the Fe3O4 for jewelery hunting if I recall correctly (may have been on the F70), but I don't recall them following up on their theory and testing. Either it worked great, and they don't want to share it so they can get all the jewelery, or I dunno

 

[Cal_Cobra]

So where is this old naval base?.....there has to be something in sac?.....are you around here?

Hey mascard1. It's not in sac, it's in the bay area. I'm not in sac either, I'm in the east bay.