My Fisher F2 first impressions

[Gribnitz]

I bought one of these for an xmas present for myself. I really didn't need another machine, but for $200 I fgured what the heck and sprung for it, especially since it comes with the small coil as a bonus right now. I wanted a VID machine with some whiz bangs and didn't want to spend a ton on it, so it fit the bill well. Before you ask, I never got an ACE for a couple reasons. I had a "Treasure Ace 300" and it sucked, so the ACE name turned me off (I know the new ACE series runs circles around the old ones, but I still have a bad taste for the name. They should have named it something different to distance themselves from those older lemons), and the "bong" sound drove me bonkers. It is just too different than what I am used too. Anyway, my Fisher F2 impressions. I have only used the 8 inch coil so far....

What I like :
I love the fast response. The recovery speed is very fast. You don't have to work at a snails pace with it.
I dug almost ZERO trash with it and the ID was generally correct.
Zinc pennies and copper pennies registered correctly.
I love the tone ID. I am a Tejon user, so I am used to beep and dig.
I like all the whiz bangs on it for the buck. The notch will come in handy at the park.
It is really light weight.
The pinpoint is dead on.
The price. $199 with 2 coils is a great deal.
It is NOT flimsy, which I was afraid might be the case. The rods lock and the coil wire fits tightly into the socket even though it doesn't screw on.

What I did not like:
All the correctly ID'd targets were shallow. Three or four inches maybe.
Clad dimes ID'd as zinc pennies a lot. They still ID'd as a coin target, but the wrong target group.
It looks like a muffler on a stick.
2 nine volts are going to suck the money out of my wallet if I use it too much.
No coil covers came with the package.

I won't give a final word on it until I have some time under my belt with it. Is it going to replace my Tejon or my Vaquero? No way, I didn't buy it for that and I had no illusions it was going too. My Tejon is my relic hunter and the Vaquero is my backup/competition hunter. I bought the F2 for a park hunting machine for the most part, but the itty bitty coil and the fast recovery may convince me to take it to some older iron infested sites to play with it too. "It is what it is" as MB stated. It isn't going to replace any $500+ machine, but it sure will give a run for the money on all the other entry level units.

 

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[Michigan Badger]

Nice review.

Bury a wheat penny at a measured 4 inches and post here the tone and meter reading.

Thanks,

Badger

 

[hsjrev]

Nice review.

Bury a wheat penny at a measured 4 inches and post here the tone and meter reading.

Thanks,

Badger

I got a chance to do that in the back yard today since it finally stopped raining around here, ground is still very moist. The F2 had no problem picking up the wheat but the ID varied depending on the direction that I swung from. In one direction it gave a repeatable "zinc" low 50's response but when I turned 90 degrees it jumped all over from iron to pulltab and never gave the same response twice. Since changng direction 90 degrees is usually the test I use for trash, I wouldn't have dug that signal.
The Ace 250 gave a solid bell tone and registered either the 10c or 1c bar no matter what direction I swung from giving a definite "dig" signal no matter what I did.

I also tried a silver Roosevelt dime at 5" and the F2 numbers jumped all over no matter which direction I swung. It would give a "dime" on about 1 out of 10 swings with the rest being anything from iron to tab. Again, I wouldn't have dug that response. The Ace 250 gave either a 10c or 25c signal and showed 6" depth from any direction-definite dig.

I then buried my white gold wedding band at 4" and was pretty impressed that the F2 gave a solid repeatable "nickel" and and ID number between 30-33 from any direction. The Ace 250 icons bounced around in the nickel and tab regions, a little different on each swing. I probably would have passed that as trash with the Ace but definitely dug the F2 signal.

So...from my little back yard test today using the standard coils, I'd say the Ace 250 is much better at coin ID but the F2 was surprisingly good at ID'ing my ring for some reason. Of the two detectors, I like the Ace 250 mo' better.

{edit} to add that neither detector could get a repeatable signal on the silver dime at 6". The F2 would give no response at all most of the time and when it did sound a weak signal it would be "iron" 06 on the ID. The Ace would sound off more times than the F2 but ID would be anything from iron to 25c and some swings would make no sound at all. My old Compass Gold Scanner would sound a good repeatable tone with the disc turned up past pulltab but the ID needle wouldn't register at all. This is the pretty standard response on deep coins so I wasn't too surprised by that. I tried the used Sovereign GT that I've only had one day and couldn't get any response. I'll admit that I know almost nothing about the Minelab and how it works but I would have thought it would have registered something that I could hear. This thing is very different from any detector that I've used before and will probably take quite a bit of schoolin'. I didn't try it on anything buried shallower than 6" yet but it seems to air test OK.

 

[EasyMoney]

My Sov won't find things as deep audibly as the Compass Relic & Coin or Goldscanner Pro either (same Compass detector, different names). That is normal though for the Compasses. But an inch or so isn't a big difference. I used to own a Goldscanner Pro too, back in the 80's. Excellent detectors. I never had to repair one for anybody.

The F-2 I tested however, did match the depth of the Sov, but discriminates a lot better and is lighter too. There is a 2" difference in the size of the coils too, 8" for the F-2, and 10" for the Sov. My Sov has about 1/2 inch on an Expl SE and II but that's no big deal either.

I've tried both an Ace 250 and 150 now in my soil and neither would go deeper than 4". The Silver uMaxes got better depth. About 1/2" to 1", nothing more. It almost but not quite matches the depth of the Sov.
1/2" still is little difference though.

The F-2 clearly works better in high iron soil over the Ace, but the Ace may have some better luck in gentler soil. I noticed that the F-2 likes gold a little better than the Aces do.

 

[Trackerman]

I have the Ace and the F2 and its the other way around the Ace is better with gold and jewlry while the F2 will find coins much faster.