F5 Confidence Meter

Hi Gerry, No F 5'ers speaking up so I will give it a try. F5 owners are not alone in relying on the confidence meter for deciding weather or not to dig. A bunch of us F5, F70 and F75 swingers are very dedicated to using all the tools our Fisher F series are equipped with. Digger27, myself and many others around the web are quick to share info with each other vital to the learning experience with these much alike F series formats. Much of our information will hold up with many different F series models.

One the thing confidence meters and VDI will do is help decide if you are directly over a target or off to the side somewhat. Many high tones can come from rust off of big iron. Even if iron is notched or discriminated out, look to see if the iron icon lights up when getting a non repeatable high tone. This is likely a false signal and drive VDI and confidence meters nuts.. I know from past conversations with Digger, he and I both dedicate a significant amount of effort making sure the target is placed as close to directly under the coil as possibly. This is important in an accurate determination of the target. Confidence meter can help you in determining weather or not you have done that. An example may be a solid reoccurring signal, one way, only off to the side of the target reading 6" deep. This target will probably have a jumpy VDI and will most definitely have a low indication on the confidence meter as the two seem to somewhat go hand in hand, to a point. By examining this target further and getting more over it's center, lets say you now get another hit from a 90 degree angle. So now you have a two way hit in both directions 4" deep, notice we are now hitting target 2" shallower than with the one way hit. This tells me I am close to being directly over the target. But wait, my VDI still jumps from the high 60's to a 71 or 72. Typical symptom of a very corroded zincoln. With the F70, the longer I examine these type targets, the higher the final numbers seem to get. Close to 71 or 72. But the confidence meter is still as jumpy as when I started. This tells my 99% it is a corroded Lincoln cent. If the same scenario ends up being a 73 with 2bars in confidence meter it is probably a corroded clad dime or a non corroded pre 1984 penny. If it is a 73 solid with a full confidence meter it is a very clean clad dime and a 75 and full confidence meter would be a silver dime with my 10" elliptical coil. Your coil and soil type will vary these numbers somewhat but the theory should still apply. I hope this makes some sense----HH-IM

F5

IMdiggin:

Thanks for the information.

Looks like the Confidence Meter is a good indication of the condition of the target...

Yes Gerry, that is also a condition that is determined by the metal type of the item. Non corrosive metals such as gold and silver will always be more apt to score well on the confidence meter regardless of its age. I had two mercury dimes that were stained that hit big time 75's at 6" just the same as the clean one I found a few months earlier. VDI's did not jump one little bit on any. But I will say the first Mercury of the two I found on the same day, was after just leaving a real trashy area. I forgot was running only 35 sensitivity and -3 threshold. The signal was only one way but sweet as honey and it stopped me dead in my tracks. I was nearly out of depth range on that one. I bumped the sensitivity up to 50 and then got that VDI of 75 and a full confidence meter in both directions. Sweeeeeet.

You are gonna love that F5. If you go on the Fisher Research Lab website, look around for Tips and Tricks of the F5 By Mike Hillis. It is a read very worth your time when you are learning the F5--HH----IM

The confidence meter isn't always 100% right, but it will tell the truth the best it can. For example, most of the time it says its a quarter it is a quarter. It may read wrong if its an object the size of a quarter, or made of somewhat the same metal. That's when you use your metal detecting tricks to try and *feel* out your target. Use the pin pointer button to feel out the diameter of the object, then lift the coil up a few inches and check your depth and size. After you do this a few times, you get better and understanding what the f5 is telling you. My best advice is using sound and instinct along with the confidence meter. One example is my f5 was jumping from tab to zinc (which usually is a pull tab or a deep penny) but the sound it was making was lovey for some reason. It was shallow, but the sound got faint when I raised the coil unlike a pop can which would still give major sound from my personal experience. I knew it wasn't a tab, I knew it wasn't a penny. From doing the coil test I knew it wasn't a pop can, so what is it? I dug it up and found a sterling silver chain necklace which was a surprise to me. Almost every nice treasure I dig up wasn't from what the confidence meter was telling me, but from the knowledge I learn on each hunt. At 500$ my f5 paid for itself easily in the first year, but I rather admire the history of my finds then sell them. Happy hunting and best of luck!

To be honest, I don't really even look at the screen. Most of my hunting is done by sound. Trash isn't as clean sounding as good targets.

If you stop looking at the screen and listen to the sounds you will pick up on subtle crackles and "unclean" sounds of the trash over the crisp clean hits of good targets.

Don't get me wrong, it's not 100% accurate, but neither is the ID lol

That is good advise. That is exactly why I use DP tones where that 28 VDI to 35 range isn't over run with trash. But you know the old ears are not quite what they once were so sometimes a little help from the display goes a long way.---IM