FisherF5 Metal Detector

This is an amazing story. For the last year or so I have become obsessed with gold mining and metal detecting as a new hobby. Anything to get me outside doing something is needed in my life. I toiled over what equipment to get for the best price for months. I subscribe to an online group to learn about it http://www.goldprospectorsspace.com/… I learned a few months ago that there is also a local club that met on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. I planned to go last month but flaked out. The next meeting is the day after tomorrow and I plan to go. So I finally got my metal detector last night and although I have watched countless youtube videos on prospecting and detecting with different detectors, comparisons with different models and how to use the settings there is still a huge learning curve on how to use it. There are so many detectors out there and in the end I chose the Fisher F5. So for the first time ever a few minutes ago I took it out and was testing it by the elementary school 100 feet from my house, no traffic, no people just a beautiful day when a man came walking by across the street in a neon orange jersey and he commented "it's been a while since I used one of those." This started a conversation and it turns out James has lots of experience in both gold prospecting and metal detecting and he was telling me it was the greatest hobby on earth and that once I find my first silver coin I will be hooked. So I happen to mention that I planned to go to mineralogical and geological society meeting this Tuesday and he told me he was a member and I learned the meeting was at a different place so I would have showed up at the wrong place. It was as if James was sent by God, there really was something angelic about him perhaps in his 60's. We shook hands and he went along on his morning walk and I went into the schoolyard to poke around near the play equipment. I got a few hits and tones in the gravel at the bottom of the slide and just used my fingers to brush away some gravel but nothing, I then wandered over to a strip of grass and got what looked like a pretty good signal so for the first time ever I broke out my little digger tool and dug up a very small two inch plug of grass and found this dime, a 1990D dime, while it is not old enough to be a silver dime it is still 25 years old and to me it is a miracle. What are the odds of all of these things happening. James also mentioned that he went to that same school as a little boy. The only thing that could make this story better is if the dime dated back to when he was a student there and that it was a dime he lost over 60 years ago or if I show up at the meeting on Tuesday and am told he passed away several years ago back in 1990. I am keeping this dime forever.

Received product as described in a timely manor. Actually faster than expected. I researched many other equivalent metal detectors from the other manufactures and feature for feature, the Fisher F5 is in my opinion, is the best choice. I shopped around. Most every internet website had the F5 listed at $499, most had free shipping. Amazon has it listed at about $40 less. Not sure why, but $40 buys good quality set of head phones. Sites like Kelloco.com (they have excellent customer service and fast shipping) but they include a bunch of extras with their metal detectors that I don't need. I rather buy the accessories individually. The F5 is an excellent metal detector. Decimation is simple, 3 frequencies, Gain, threshold, ground balance, phase lock, pin point and depth indicator. You can upgrade the coil if you want. I've been using the F5 a lot at the beach and I love it. The things I would have like to see: Back light. I start early in the morning, before sunrise. There's no back lite to see the display. Rain cover for the display should be included. Arm strap should be included. When paying over $450 for a unit, it should have the above listed missing items. I'm giving 4 stars because I believe a metal detector should have a backlite display as a standard feature. Overall, I'm happy with the Fisher F5 and I believe that most of you will too.

The controls on the detector are more reminiscent of the 1980-2000 vintage units. Some controls are analog potentiometers, some are digital. For me personally, I like this combination. I get the benefits of some of the newer controls which seem more accurate and can change tones based on feedback. Others, like easily adjusting my ground balance are just like they were 20 years ago, which work great - love them. Uses standard batteries which is a plus. Controls were easy to read even in bright sun. The unit is very light and handles easily. Coil size is adequate for most small targets. Instruction book was well written and easy to follow. On the first time out, we hit an old parking area near our local flea market. Found lots of new coins plus a few older pennies and nickles. Even found some half dollars (clad). The unit did very well discriminating through all the other junk metal out there, especially those darned old pull tabs from the 70's, 80's, and 90's.

I use this almost exclusively for coin hunting and come up with plenty. I have't figured out the difference between nickles and pulltabs yet.

love it

I just received this as a gift from a friend. Super pumped been wanting one forever. I unpackage it and start to assemble it. When I got to the coil it took a bolt of some sort. But there was no bolt so I look in the box. And find 2 knobs both sides with threaded screws in it. Seemed weird to me. So I start looking closer and the main threaded screw was broke in half. Right out of the packaging. Not very happy right now. Thanks for letting me down.

I have used the F5 for about a year as my first detector. I have found one gold ring, 3 silver coins, about 100 bucks in change, over 30 wheat pennies, old tokens, and tons of weird items like costume jewelry, bullets, old door hinges, etc. I really love the knobs and ease of ground balancing on this machine. Using the knobs to discriminate, change threshold, and gain gives me quick and easy controls on the fly. The F5 does have 4 tones and excellent pinpointing capability. It also has very accurate depth reading so you know how far down to dig. Most of the coins and smaller items I find are less than five inches. Larger items will read up to 8-9 inches. I still consider myself a beginner so I hope to further my skills and get more depth out of the machine. I gave this machine 4/5 stars because I haven't figured out how to get it to find deeper coins.

BRILLIANT THANKS