Learning the ropes

[Pencil_&_Paper]

Hello folks!

I needed an official excuse to go to the beach more often, so I purchased a used Fisher F2 yesterday. I'm located near London, Ontario, and there's actually quite a bit of history dating back to early European settlers in my immediate neighborhood. It should make for some interesting adventures.

I'll take some photos today and post back later tonight. At this point, I'm just reading through the user manual and getting used to the machine. Thanks for the great site, there's lots of great information here.

Cheers,
Mike

[Terry Soloman]

Read it until you understand it, and learn your machine's language. You are now infected. Big Gold to you!

[DigginTexas]

welcome from Texas! and to a great hobby!

[Diggin Funatic]

Welcome from Iowa and Happy Hunting!

[CDNsilver]

Hi Mike,

I am from Ontario to, Ancaster. Here are some tips the manual does not
show you and will keep the trash find frustration down.

Copper pennies will come up as a dime (normal).

Try this,

Hunt in all metal but only dig the high tones (coins and silver rings etc) for now.
Later on you can dig the med tones (foil, pull tabs, nickel and zinc=zinc penny, 5 cent and gold rings etc)
when the frustration levels come down. You don't even have to look
at the lcd screen just listen for the high tones.

These high tone targets will still have to pass a few tests before you
dig them,

test

1-The high tone target is repeatable on both the left and right sweep
of the swing. PASS

2-Turn 90 degress to the target and repeat step one. PASS

3-Check the width of the high tone target using the MDs pinpointer.
Hold the pinpointer button in and scan the target, the pinpointer
hum should fall off sharply on both sides of the target with a width
of 3/4 of an inch (coin size). Rasing your coil an extra inch off the ground helps
with this test. PASS

4-Turn 90 degress to the target and repeat steps three. PASS

Note: If steps 3 and 4 result in a target with a width say of 6 inches
(deep pop can) I don't dig it.

These tips should get you a 90% good finds/10% trash screw cap finds.

Take care,
CDNsilver

[DIGGER27]

I dunno.
Beach digging is pretty easy, there could be chains that might mimic larger trash especially using that pinpoint tone, the best way to learn when you are new is dig it all, so that is what I suggest you do.

Sense on max, (in freshwater it should work fine), on the saltwater side you will probably have to turn the sense down if you are not in the dry sand but the wet part.

I would not notch out anything since gold and silver chains, (or at least the clasps), can possibly come in under iron, but if you are digging too much iron just get rid of that.
Use disc if you need to, but keep as many segments as you can to find the most.

[fogcity]

Welcome to the forum from Katy, Texas !!!

[poppoplou]

Welcome from Long Island, New York.

[Silversmith45]

Don't get the control box wet. F2's freak out if you do...don't they Patton? (Like hunting in the rain)

[Pencil_&_Paper]

Thanks for the friendly welcome everyone, and thanks for the great tips as well. I'll try out those tips on my next adventure.

I'll post my first find here, and in the proper category as well. I hit the beach because it was easy digging, and all I have to dig right now is a little garden spade. A sand scoop would have made my dig a lot easier, and more productive, but I'll have to purchase one for next time.

I left disc. wide open, and dug everything just to get a feel for the machine. Lots of foil, bottle caps, juice boxes, nails, and hair-pins. I was surprised that the F2 was so accurate with locating the exact spot of the target. I followed the method of performing the 90-degree "X" marks-the-spot location, and I only missed a few targets. Some of the targets were 8-10 inches down, so I left them because it's a bit difficult with only a small garden spade.

Without further delay, here's my first bounty!

*Edit: The location was at Grand Bend, Ontario. (http://www.grandbend.com/) I should mention I was just using the general 8" coil, although I do have a 4" and 10" coil as well. The gold bracelet was my first find, and it was just barely covered with sand. It was located close to the life-guard look-out post. If I remember correctly, it came up "zinc" on my LCD target category. After 2 hours my back was pretty sore from all the bending over, but it was a great day. I had a few people come and talk to me about MDing, so I gave them a demonstration. The beach crew workers didn't mind at all that I was fishing out glass bottles and sharp wire objects from their beach. I threw all the trash in the garbage as well.



About $5 in coins

[Juanito]

Wow, great first day at the beach!

[Dirty Money]

That is a superb first outing. Keep it up.

HH

[Patton]

Originally Posted by Silversmith45

Don't get the control box wet. F2's freak out if you do...don't they Patton? (Like hunting in the rain)

[Patton]

Wow!
Nice job! Big F2 fan. As my pal Richard said, don't get the control box wet.
Congrats on some nice finds.

[mitocondriac]

Welcome to the forum. Good luck on the addiction. Started about 2 weeks ago and I think about when the next time I get to go out is . Cant wait to dig me some more trash....but one day will find something!!!!

[kaliguy]

from Costa Rica