Questionable signals

[mikeraydj]

As a few of you know I bought a Fisher F5. Where I live there are a few parks that I have been hunting but it is no dig. So I have confined myself to coin popping shallow consistent signals and have done pretty good at that. Today I went to the county fairgrounds which doesn't have dig restrictions and decided that I would try deeper questionable signals. My focus was to be on the high tones. The ones that Mike Hillis calls whispers. The ones that are deeper that aren't consistent but make you wonder. I didn't recover anything that was noteworthy. But when I got those high tones that were jumpy and deep I started finding quarters. They were not as old as I wanted but older than most I had been finding. I told myself to listen and not care about the target ID. It was not a long hunt but I found some older clad at 4-6 inches. Makes me wonder if the silver is at 8-10 inches. I am starting to realize what the old timers are saying about listening to your machine. I also run my discrimination at about 8 so as to take out some of the iron but not all. It makes the F5 like a Garrett with iron audio. I am happy that I am slowly starting to learn some of the nuances of detecting and my machine.

 

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[digger27]

I have found with my Fishers, especially the F70 and probably your F5, the deeper the targets the more you need to rely on tones and less on the screen info...if not ignore the screen info altogether.
Not too hard for me to do with my hundreds of hours standing behind my Tesoros, easier said than done if all you ever swung was a screen machine.
So far I have dug mostly beaver tail tabs at 10" or so, they sound solid in tone and for some reason a high tone on the F70, and very jumpy on the screen if there was any info at all, but a target was there at that depth.
A great set of targets at 8" with the same behavior was 3 Indians and an old wheatie.
Jumpy too because they were spread out a bit, acted like big iron does with false high tones,but I kept seeing high numbers flash on the screen and more importantly some very good high tones that constantly repeated and didn't sound false to me.
Glad I dug that one.
Glad you are becoming one with your machine.
I have a few rules, one of them is..."When in doubt, dig".

Keep listening, keep learning, keep digging.
Without X-Ray vision it is the only way to truly know.

 

[mikeraydj]

Thanks as always Digger! Will take your advice to heart.

 

[KennyD]

I just got my F5 a few days ago, and I just love it too Mike!
I really like the total control you have with the machine. I totally agree about the faint "squeaker" signals. Got 3 deep wheat pennies yesterday that way.

 

[Bart@Big Boys Hobbies]

You are for sure going about it the right way. Audio Audio Audio...

Keep at it Sir!

 

[Sandman]

IT helps to have a good set of headphones from Bart of Big Boys Hobbies.

 

[meMiner]

I don't use an F5, but have used other Fisher detectors (and other brands) for years. What I have learned is the old silver and copper will normally give a strong crisp repeatable signal **IF** (1) the coin is lying down (2) it is old - meaning pure silver or copper - vs today's clads which are getting more and more like iron junk - I think Budweiser caps have better metal than very recent Canadian $1 & $2 coins - at least my detector tells me that) (3) no other junk is under the coil at the same time (4) the target is under the sweet spot for the coil and (5) the target is no deeper than the width of the coil. When one of these conditions is not met, then the detector will be confused. It does not mean that there isn't something good down there. It becomes a question of dig or no-dig. If you are in an area with a chance of silver, my advise is to dig everything that has a soft/deep tone, but the dreaded double beep, which is typically a nail.