Fisher F5
Price: $550
Avg. Score: 
4.59
Based on 22 reviews
4.59Based on 22 reviews
Avg. Durability:
4.88
Avg. Ease of use:
4.50
EXCELLENT Detector, EXCELLENT Depth
March 17, 2009
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!
Overall Rating
Marcomo from
God Bless the, USA
888
Nothing special
February 22, 2009
The F5 has some real good features. It is nice to be able to adjust the
gain and threshold seperately. The good
The notch feature is good
Ground balancing is easy
Multi tones are nice
Fast target recovery
5 year warranty
The not so good
Build quality seems fair
Volume could be louder on fainter targets. Without headphones deeper targes are almost impossible to hear if the wind is blowing or their is noise around.
No volume control, would be nice to have that feature.
Target id is not really any good past 3 1/2 to 4 inches on a penny sized target.
Jumpy ID numbers
Not worth the $500 price tag in my estimation
Overall not a bad detector but for someone wanting to find deeper targets I would go for something else. It will work fine on shallow targets but don't expect too much depth with accurate target id.
Overall Rating
Jerry from
Oklahoma
8044