Little discouraged

A bottle cap and pull tab sounds a bit light for 7 hours of detecting. How much experience do you have, both detecting overall and with that particular machine? If you're new at detecting, don't get discouraged. First, make sure you're following the manual for the machine you are using. If you think you are, then do some practice searches in your yard or some other controlled area, using a variety of coins, a ring and some common trash (a tab and a bottle cap for example). Practice sweeping to make certain that each shows as it should on your machine. Once all is in synch, get back to live searching. At the search site, practice on a couple of coins to see if the ground is affecting your machine much, and note the differences, if any, between what you are expecting and what you are experiencing. Then get back to hunting. Best of luck!

Never used a Fisher, but seems odd you wouldn't find more trash, it's every where. Humans are filthy animals....

Probably your settings. You want to ease up on the discrimination. I discriminate most of the iron range, but will fiddle with it a little, depending how annoying the beeping is, where I'm hunting. If I'm running mostly quite (not many targets), I ease off a little more into the iron range.

Sensitivity isn't real depth, it's more to control the gain on the received signal. Run as high as you can, but back it down, if you get a lot of non-repeating beeps.

Try hunting some curb strips, most will cough up a penny, at least. Not everybody hunts them, like the parks or beach.

Might try a few tot lots , or someplace you know will be trashy to get the feel of the machine . Like a picnic table at the park .

I've only been doing this for about 2 months. I'm not completely sure I'm doing it right myself. I've found 4 rings -- 1 class ring (returned to owner), two cheaper silver rings, and one stainless steel (looked like gold!!!) wedding band and about 20 dollars in clad. I did stumble upon 2 silver dimes -- one a mercury. I assume the mercury has been in the ground a while but the 64 dime could have been dropped fairly recently as all the other coins in that area were modern (last 15 years).

I spend a lot of time digging trash. I like to try to discriminate but I get scared I'm going to miss something good. It's very frustrating.

I run all metal and then flip to discriminate but I keep mine set at right below "nickel". If I get really tired of trash I'll spin it up and then back down to see where it cuts off. I'm still learning though.

Well, assuming there actually was something there to find, and since you did find a target- I would without actually being there have to say the sweep and overlap. And this after over 30 years of observing others. Make a sweep-stop-move coil forward half a coil's width and sweep parallel to last sweep. Repeat maybe 2-3 times THEN, and only then take a small step. What am I saying? Most WALK then sweep and SKIP at most HALF the area they are searching- I've watched it time and again. Heck, just watch some of the you tube videos! And again- this is assuming there were targets in your area and since you found a tab not using too much discrimination.

Fisher f4

You might try air testing some coins and other objects to make sure they are regestering on your detector. When i got mine it was not working right , i sent it in and found out the coil on my new detector as well as a circut board were both defective. They were fixed free , but you should be hitting some bottle caps and other trash that shows up as coins.

I have been detecting a little over a week, I read the manual around 10 times. I get a little confused on ground balanced but I thought I had it sorted. I get lots of iron signals and rarely see anything in nickel range. I am going to some test runs with coins I toss on the ground to see if there is something im doing wrong. I dont have a pin pointer so when I get a signal I end up diggin a nice size hole to, then I go over it hear a signal and dig more but to no avail.

Zed71,

I recommend you try and dig a few plugs and place coins under. Try to keep plug as intact as possible.

While you are experimenting with these buried coins----play with your settings.

Also I recommend you get a pinpointer. You may not know this, but you can get a good signal---start digging and resweep your target with your detector and the signal may or may not still be audible. In the case of the signal not being there this should not discourage you from continued digging.

Your detector does have depth limits for the most part. I don't have any experience with F4. Have a little with F5.

After you use your detector for a while you start to get a pretty good idea of your detectors max depth on most coins/coin sized targets.

Two words.......TEST GARDEN

I'm not familiar with the F series Fishers. But, if youre looking for an inexpensive PP, go to Harbor Freight. They have a hand held PP for like $17. Yes it is cheaply made, no it is not a robust as the Garret or Minelab PPs. But it does the job in a pinch and has better range than the Fisher/BH PP.

sllingshot47 said:

Well, assuming there actually was something there to find, and since you did find a target- I would without actually being there have to say the sweep and overlap. And this after over 30 years of observing others. Make a sweep-stop-move coil forward half a coil's width and sweep parallel to last sweep. Repeat maybe 2-3 times THEN, and only then take a small step. What am I saying? Most WALK then sweep and SKIP at most HALF the area they are searching- I've watched it time and again. Heck, just watch some of the you tube videos! And again- this is assuming there were targets in your area and since you found a tab not using too much discrimination.

Click to expand...

Yep good points, use a medium swing speed with the F4 as well.

What were your discrimination settings?
.

Zed71 said:

So I spent an hr at the park and only found a pull tab, then I went to the beach for 2hrs and found nothing. I have hunted 7hrs including the weekend and found 1 bottle cap and pull tab. I use a fisher f4 and not sure what im doing wrong or is this the norm? thought I would find some change atleast.

Click to expand...

go to a little league field with a concession stand and practice on clad...i found one near me with tons of clad...got me used to machine quick!

Zed,

If you only have seven hours of detecting total under your belt then I would not expect miracles.

Burying some coins and jewelery yourself and getting familiar with what readings they give is going to be a great help. It takes hours to get to know your detector really well, it will become an extension of your senses that lets you see underground.

If I go out with a familiar detector I can find a penny and other pocket change almost anywhere, but the other day I went out with a new detector I never used before and it was very, very hard for me to figure out what I was seeing with it.

The detector and the way it is set up can make a big difference. I love my MX5 because I can set it so it does not make any noise at all on most iron, and with a little experience reading the numbers it shows I can tell the difference between a good target and a bottle cap and many pop tabs.

Metal Detecting is not magic by a long shot. It is hard work for little pay. It is fun to read the glamorous stories where guys find gold and silver, but that is not the norm! The truth is that on most days if you count your hours and divide them by the value of what you dig up, you are going to make five to ten cents an hour, and that is if you are good at using your detector.!

You have to resign yourself to the fact that you are not out there to make money, you are out there for exercise and relaxation, and if you trip across some jewelry or money that is simply a bonus. If you think you are going to go out and make minimum wage with your metal detector then you have simply fallen prey to sensational stories and advertising.


Here is a photo of what I found the last time I had three hours to spend on this hobby, not counting a few pop-tabs and aluminum siding fragments. Thirty cents in change face value along with a worthless President Buchanan token and a tag off a rose plant. Maybe worth $1.30 if you count the collector value of the large Australian penny and the single wheat-back cent. So at the most 43 cents an hour for my trouble, and if I count the gas I burned getting to and from the site I found them at I am losing. So you simply can not be in it for anything but the fun and the education or you will always be disappointed.

k

I have never hunted a park or playground without getting some sort of signal. BUT there are areas that are fairly clean. Maybe you've stumbled onto one.

As stated, start by planting some targets. Make sure your machine actually works. Then learn how it works. I often see hunters swinging their machines in a fast arc so little time is where it can pick up signals. Concentrate on keeping the coil parralel to the ground. Once you master that it becomes automatic. This gives you optimal chances to find targets.

Pennies, pull tabs and bottle caps are everywhere. You WILL find them. Then quarters and rings will follow.

Good luck

Lots of competition out there. Assuming your detector is set up and working correctly you may just be hunting places that get hunted a lot by other people. I remember being discouraged back when I first started detecting because I wasnt finding much. The problem turned out to be my choices of places to hunt. After getting a metal detector I couldnt wait to get over and try certain obvious places , but they were obvious to everyone else too and the ground had been getting picked clean by others almost daily....unbeknownst to me.

But you also should make sure you understand the detector and how to use it. The wrong settings or bad technique can cause you to mis a lot..

Zed,
Not sure where you are from but if you could hook up with another detectorist
that would save you a lot of time and trouble. Be happy to do it myself if you
were somewhat close.

Rand