F19 experiences

The F19 has been my flavour of the month for a while now.

This thing finds small,... that is for sure.
With easy going settings in non poluted ground targets have been popping up, that are very hard to locate.

Sens at 55, V-break at 40 : 3mm rivet heads and small chards of copper are the norm. I just stick a small clump of dirt into the finds bag and start panning when I get home.

It has exacting ground grab,... and this as a result makes for amazing depth for such a coil. Again in non poluted ground.
Sens at 65, V-break at 40: 8" deep WWII bullet "lead and full copper jacket" 25 mm long with an exacting ID, not jumpy in any way. Slight but very recognisable whisper signal. These bullets aren't anything special, but they are a hard target at depth. Mix of conductancies and the shape gives off a very iffy signal.

Great and easy to use detector that is very sure of itself!!

All Metal:
What has been nagging me is,... I haven't been able to run gain up higher than 45% before the threshold becomes noisy?
Even in a full steel enclosed room during air test,... you would have to think EMI would be mostly mitigated in such a place.
Cell phone reception, wireless phone reception is Zéro in this room!

This has been nagging me, very sensitive detector,... but am I hearing internal noise upwards of 45% gain??

Anyone have any thoughts they'd like to share.
Thanks

HH
Johnb

I have a similar room John, that I use for headphone compatibility airtests. Electricity turned off, no Wi-Fi, but plenty of large metal, sills/roof close.

It is funny how some places indoors give differing interference on a wide range of units. For example a 705 will only take half gain before constant jumping falseing, a 305 one touch down from top setting, an F75 cannot be switched on, nor the Fors units.

But the F19 remains stable at full gain even when testing in all metal! I had NOT expected that...
I only run the F19 in all metal when detecting, from the harshest of hot ground to very even dirt, and can only say that these are as close to perfect as I could wish for in a dual gold nugget hunter/coin hunter.
I love thst slimline stock coil, but I'm hoping to set one up with a large ie: 13" ultimate or large Detech coil and see if they can push through that gain through at least as deep as one of the Euro units I've been testing since last year.

Hi John,

You are right about the performance of the F 19...incredible for such a small package.

As for EMI: you will almost always experience this at some stage of using any machine.
While writing my Field Test last summer my F 19 was 'ON' quite a lot of hours in my apartment while double checking "stuff"
There wasn't much interference and I'm in a busy area with a lot of traffic of all sorts.
In use, I did note two cases of some EMI at two beaches. For why, I never understood? Possibles might include, fishing vessels offshore using navigation, fish finding devices and so on?
Inland some 'ticking' was heard when in the proximity of electric fencing etc.

Maybe you have a 'duff' unit? There were some that were released with a faulty component. F recalled these and did "a mod"

My biggest problem with the F 19 was 'coke'.
It was prolific on a few sites but I found a few methods to deal with it.
This is what I wrote at the time:
Tip: they mightn’t sound very consistent, repeatable in other words. The audio might drop off and come up again. The Target ID can show all the 40’a and 50’s in a split second. The 3 segments of the Target Scale of the arc can jump around with heavier hits in the ‘40‘s. They might sound flat, monotone. They can double bleep. The audio will at times sound ‘fuzzy’ in all metal and appear to move around and the threshold can dip quickly either just before or right after passing the rock. The Signal Strength indicator can be erratic. Behaviour that is completely the opposite of accepted ‘good’ targets.

Good Hunting

Des D

Time permitting, I'm going to send it back for repair.
But first I'll get myself another unit so I can compare,... like with anything something great never comes easy :-)

If this is performance of a "Duff" unit,... I'd hate to have an on spec unit in my hands.
Imagine the panning I'll be doing after a hunt !!

HH
Johnb

MY F-19 is my GO TO machine at present. I use it for relics and I prefer the 11 inch coil (instead of stock). That's just my preference and I have used both quite alot. It goes a bit deeper with the lager elliptical coil and covers more ground but still retains all of the good qualities of the F19. And yes, electric fencing (when 15 yards from it) produces a ticking noise every 2 full seconds apart. But I still am able to get up next to the fence and hunt. Depth seems to not suffer from the electric fence. I hunt in 3 to 4 BAR dirt and the machine will go as deep as I care to dig. It seems to out power the G2 by just a bit. But I have never done any actual side by sides. I have a deep, 12 inch bullet (in 2 to 3 bar dirt) (and I'm not even sure that it is 12 inches, it could be 11 or even 10.....as I lost the piece of paper that diagramed my test garden). My F19 would hit the bullet. My G2 would not. This was done on the same day, about 20 minutes apart, so ground moisture would not have been a factor. The bullet is fringe depth for the F19 and just out of range of the G2. But I liked the G2 as much as the F19 anyway. But didn;'t need both. The F19 is a good all arounder, I think. My 2 cents.

I bought my F19 a couple of months ago. The weather in my parts has allowed us to get out almost every weekend. I have been fortunate to hunt several civil war camp sites and the F19 has been nothing more than amazing. I took the advise of woodchiphustler (George) on my settings and have never looked back. 0 disk, 39 V break, volume 11 and gain100%. The ID is rock solid. I don't measure the depth of my finds but I can tell you it is plenty deep. The 11" DD will increase the depth 1.5 to 2.5" ,depending on the target, and locks on target just as well as the stock coil. Having both coils is a great combination.

Do you guys also have a unit that prefers a brisk sweep over a target?

It produces a weaker sound with a slower sweep.

HH
Johnb

Mine likes a fast sweep also

Nothing out of the ordinary then.

Been comparing to the X-terra 705 HF Elliptical coil,... still need a few more outings to see what is what.
But the F19 doesn't tend to false as much on iron,... or I had my sens on the 705 too high.

Don't want to turn this into an X Vs Y thread,... both are getting me the targets :-)

HH
Johnb