Fisher F5

Honest Mid-Range All Purpose

David in Dinwiddie Virginia -
This is the first Fisher I've owned, among 3 Garretts and 2 Tesoro's since 1984. I'm really sorry I never paid much attention to Fisher brand in the past. This detector uses an engineering coupler of analog and digital, huge display, user friendly settings, with knobs mostly.
I like this most of all. It's all 'YOU' with your settings and ground balancing, which is some what automatic, for keeping up to changes, once you get going. Read the manual. Stock coil a little small for relic hunting, so, if thats your area of interest, have to buy the larger 11 DD coil, but must be the right coil, Freq. Matched to this detector.

You can't just buy any coil, and make it work with this system. F5 Freq. Matched only. Check with Fisher, if you don't understand. Love the whining burp sounds this unit makes, over other brands. Sounds like a cat, and you can change the sounds it makes, along with tiny minor freq. If getting spook sounds in search area. Like I said, read the manual.

For a mid range all-purpose detector, this is a dream, and a keeper for life. Thank you, engineers at First Texas Products, and Gerhard Fisher.

Aug 08, 2011

23 Yes
2 No

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My "opinion" of Fisher F5 detector

Jeff Tratnik in Rockford, Illinois -
I work in Calibration lab in the Midwest where we have good soil to use very cheap detectors with decent results. My F2 will find as much as my F5 except I have much more control.
Period that is the difference here in the Midwest it does not matter as much due to soil conditions, (good black dirt with some clay and sand).

I do love my detector and think for the money you cannot go wrong! It is light and easy to use. It is also very accurate to telling you what you've found as long as you use the digital numbers as your guide. Does need a volume control!

Jul 26, 2011

5 Yes
2 No

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Its unreal

David G in Townsville, QLD, Australia -
Just bought one about a month ago and it is certainly money well spent. The first thing I tested it on was lead sinkers and nails buried in a designated spot in the backyard. I used 1 inch nails and sinkers the size of a pea. All buried between 4 and 7 inches deep. Well I put the F5 to the test and she passed with flying colours. It gave me what the target was and the depth, give or take an inch.

And on the beach, well I haven't found anything very old but I have found about 50 dollars in coins :)

Jun 29, 2011

11 Yes
0 No

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F5-An Honest, Easy To Use Detector

R.L. Johnson in Northeast Ohio -
I am always buying, selling, and trading detectors. I have had most all of the high end detectors and I have done quite well with them.
Recently I have had to down size my detector inventory because of health issues. I was in the market for a light weight, responsive detector that I was able to use for two to three hours straight. This is about the limit for my swinging so I wanted something light.
The F5 is first, a very light detector. Second, it is a very easy to use detector. A relative new detectorist could be up and running in a couple of hours.
The ground balance is a snap. The controls are right in front of you. There are no menus or back buttons to fool with.
Every single adjustment is either a knob of clearly marked push button. All of your setting are quickly displayed on the large screen.

The vdi numbers are spread out and it is one of the only detectors I have used that will separate a zinc penny from a copper penny with a number.
The numbers are single, not a block of five like many of the digital detectors I have used. The pinpoint button displays the depth when activated. The depth is not an exagerrated reading, and to be honest, when it reads four inches, it most of the time slightly deeper.

The F5 will not go ten inches deep with accurate numbers and tones. What it will do is show most all coins(I am a coin hunter) in the first 6 to 7 inches of soil very accurately. I have used this detector for about 15 hours and the battery gauge just dropped one bar.
In this short time I have found over 100 coins with 10 being wheaties and two being Indian Heads. Throw in a couple of silver charms and one civil war era cuff button.

I have just been using the stock elliptical coil and it is a very accurate pinpointer. Couple the accurate depth gauge, quick response and I can dig a very small plug or poke the coin with my probe.
I know beforehand that the coin is either shallow or out of the range of my probe. Speaking of depth, if you are looking for Explorer like depth, don't buy this detector. The deepest coin I have dug has been a clad dime at 8 inches and in my soil, this is about the limit of the F5's depth. I am more than happy with that.

All in all, it is a no hype, simple to use, and for lack of a better word, Honest type of detector.

Jun 21, 2011

15 Yes
0 No

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Not happy

Mike In Kansas in Wakarusa Kansas -
Not happy with this detector for the main reason it will not find coins any deeper than 5-6 inch range. Yes I tried all the suggestions avaliable. But truth is it will not detect a dime at 6 inches. For 500.00 it was NOT a good buy for me. Yes I have found coins many in the 2-4 inch ranges. Tested and tested WILL NOT make a sound on a quarter at 6-7 inches air test. It is NOT user error as suggested. Read other posts same problem. Fine for some one who doesn't care about deeper older items.

Oct 24, 2010

14 Yes
12 No

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Fisher F5 is awesome!

Barry N. in Needville, TX -
I have been metal detecting since the 1970s on and off. I have had luck with the cheaper model metal detectors, but have always had to dig the cans, tabs, and nails. I finally decided to upgrade. I was wanting a detector that would tell me what I am digging, one that I could ignore the things I wanted to ignore, and be able to hunt around old houses and parks but also be able to do some beach detecting.

After a lot of research (several weeks) I decided on the Fisher F5. I am so happy. I thought that I was going to have to explain to my wife why I needed to buy a $1000 detector. The Fisher F5 has it all and at a mid-range price! I love having knobs and buttons instead of all buttons, I feel more in control of my settings. A slight learning curve, but after reading reviews, youtube videos, and some forums I was pretty much set. It is easy to ground balance yourself, discriminate, and notch out what you don't want. Even if you don't want to discriminate it still shows you what you are over. It still picks up cans, but you learn to tell what they are in the display.

Just turn it on and ground balance, set your desired discrimination and your set to hunt. You can then set the number of tone ID variations between 1 and 4 (I like 4) with the push of one button. If you are picking up frequency interference you can change frequencies with the push of one button. When you are over a target you can pinpoint it with the touch of one button.

When over a target it will tell you what it most likely is at the top bar graph and how confident it is in the middle with a two digit number that IDs the target also. Then you just pinpoint it and it tells you the depth!
I would highly recommend this detector because it has everything you need at a mid range price. AWESOME!

Mar 22, 2010

49 Yes
0 No

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Perfect for me

Dan L in Northeast Tennessee -
Been MDing about three years, and have had 6 different units. Understand that this is a mid range unit. I get typical 8" depth with the stock coil in discrimination, and 2-3 inched more in all metal with threshold change.

The biggest learning curve on this unit is the combination of gain and threshold in discrimination to achieve optimal performance. Understand that the gain is the sensitivity of listening for the returned signal and the threshold is the sensitivity of the metal metrics and this unit offers more options than most detectors out there. Otherwise, it's easy and light and detects just as well as any units I have used, some costing more than the F5 by $300.

Nov 08, 2009

31 Yes
1 No

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I ENJOY MINE!

Dusty in Cave Junction, OR. -
It has audio tone ID.
You can notch out or notch in different target categories in the discriminate mode.
You can set the tone ID to 4 different "target to tone" patterns in the disc. mode.
In the all metal mode, you STILL have numerical readout of target ID, but the tones are not variable pitch with the target composition.
You get to pick the tone you like for all targets.
The tone you choose varies in loudness with the strength of the target signal.
I quickly grew out of an F2, and I am growing into the F5. Anything associated with this hobby is expensive, But I enjoy playing with this toy. Would I buy it again? You bet! Would I buy the 5" DD coil again? Ahhh- No! But, I don't want to sell it either. Is it the perfect detector? I do not know what perfect is. I do enjoy my F5 is all I can say.

Oct 05, 2009

16 Yes
2 No

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Fisher F5

Teddy in PA -
The F5 has good depth in my area. I've use a lot of detectors over the years and this one will hang with the best of them. I'd say the same depth as the Garrett 1500 and 2500 in disc mode and every bit as deep as the Whites XLT and DFX in preset programs for that fact better then the DFX in it's preset programs. I don't think someone new to detecting will pick this detector up for awhile so take your time a learn your detector.

There is a learning curve! All the info you will need is right in front of you. In fact this detector gives you more real time info then any detector I've used and I've been at it since 1993. Depth wise I hit a quater at 8 inches and it rang out loud and clear I think it could take one at 10 inches no problem. For more info just head over to the findmall forum and search the fisher F series forum lot's of helpful folks there ! www.findmall.com

Apr 11, 2009

25 Yes
2 No

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EXCELLENT Detector, EXCELLENT Depth

Marcomo in God Bless the, USA -
I read Jerry in Oklahoma's review and I felt compelled to share my opinion of this detector.

Jerry said he can only get accurate target ID down to 4" on a penny. If that's the case, it's one of three things:
1. User Error
2. Really bad (highly mineralized) ground
3. A defective machine

My experience has been that the target ID is accurate on smaller coins to 6". I've found two silver dimes at 6" and both hit solidly in the coin range. My deepest finds so far have been a 8" Mercury Dime and a 8" 1942 (non-silver) nickel. The Mercury was an iffy signal and I thought it was probably junk before I dug it, with ID numbers all over the map from 30's on up.

This is very good depth for a midprice detector. And that's honest depth, not "my Explorer found a half dime at 12 inches" b.s. If that extra inch or so of depth you can get with a high end detector is important to you, you might want to go with the F5's higher priced brothers the F70 or F75 which are considered by many to be as deep as any machines out there.

In my area the Fe3O4 meter almost always reads two bars when I'm over clean ground so my soil is lightly moderate. Except in the trashiest areas I'm able to run the detector hot - a setting I often use is threshold at 0 and gain at 90.

An interesting thing about this detector, and something that takes getting used to, is when I run the detector hot and hold it still it will chatter and the ID numbers will jump all over the place. But when I swing the detector the chattering and jumping display numbers go away. The detector is stabilized by the movement. I've gotten used it, but in the beginning it was very annoying when I put the detector down to retrieve targets and it kept chattering unless the controls were turned down or headphones removed.

More important than the stellar depth, the recovery speed and target separation are phenomenal. And the interface is functionally superb with the stubby knobs and a lot of information right in front of you.

Yes, I really like this detector a lot. But here's what I don't like:
1. Fisher markets this as a simple to use detector, no doubt to appeal to the Cabelas shopping newbies. But the F5 has a lot of horsepower so to speak, and a lot going on under and above the hood. I don't think this is the best choice for a first detector. There is a definite learning curve made even longer by...
2. An absolutely terrible instruction manual loaded with mistakes. To get the manual corrections go the Findmall Fisher forum and search for Mike Hillis' manual corrections post. Mike is an F5 guru and you can learn a lot by reading his archived posts. Hopefully Fisher has come out with a corrected manual by now.
3. The build quality is solid enough but the ID display covering is a very flimsy plastic. After about 10 hours of use I was getting enough scratches on it to realize that if I didn't do something I'd be lucky to be able to read the display at 100 hours. So I got a sheet of thin clear plastic, cut it to size and attached it on the sides with gaffers tape. That's worked well to protect the display.
4. No extra coils yet. The stock 5X10 is an excellent all-purpose coil, but it would be nice to have some extra coils available. Fisher says they're coming soon, we'll see.

The more I use this detector, the more I like it!

Mar 17, 2009

63 Yes
5 No

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