MINELAB F1A4 ex military metal detectors - tips, settings, questions

[KarlS]

Cheers mate. Just shoot me a pm, been trolling Ebay since i got the idea in my head to get one. Sa was too far to go for the next closest price but i saw this one and waited it out. I only left it be so noone got stuck in a bidding war. They seem to come along pretty often, and I'm in no great rush, so just let me know if one catches your eye.

Will do. Just don't get ripoff if you score one with the mods . Any reasonable commpet technician should be able to do those mods for less then two hundred dollars.
Karl

 

[Twapster]

Ill be testing the machine this weekend out at Coles bridge in between panning and highbanking. Really love the way you can unclip the box and carry it on your belt. Makes the unit very light. Rugged construction , love the Army case and all the bags it came with- on inspection hardly used so almost brand new and built in 1998 so old but not that old! So far test on small nuggets give an acceptable depth even as a stock machine so in my opinion would have to be a top pic for a machine that is an affordable PI. Im sure these are coming from Army surplus auctions so may pay to keep an eye out on the source. You may find they are being sold in "lots" and someone may pick up a bundle of them for well under the ebay prices. Ive got my Exterra 70 to compare notes but can already tell that machine will stay in the car when gold hunting....

 

[noncents]

Hi Twapster
You have infected me with idea affordable of pulse induction detector. I got Xterra 305 and 705 and although both of them payed for themselfs in the coins I have found, I did not found any gold with either one of them. I'm currently biding on F1A4.
Karl

I just bought one last week and has just arrived, cant wait to give it a go.

Ps. All of you guys have got me in trouble with the minister of finance by putting ideas in my head. I thought it would be better to ask for forgiveness than ask for permission. :8

 

[Goldtarget]

Haha someone from the same school of thought Tis better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Gold. I'm laughing as i type this. Crack up. Hope you hit the retirement nugget now. Keep us posted.

 

[noncents]

Haha someone from the same school of thought Tis better to ask for forgiveness than for permission. Gold. I'm laughing as i type this. Crack up. Hope you hit the retirement nugget now. Keep us posted.

Hi Goldtarget
Helping with the housework and a week to cool down usually helps when Im in strife with my better half (until the next argument and everything I did wrong in the last 15 years comes out ).Hopefully I'll be able to get some time to go onto a work colleagues property in about 2 weeks time to try my luck. Im not sure about the retirement nugget but any nugget would do, still waiting for the first. :|

 

[downhalo]

I'm sure most of you guys have seen these, but figured they might be of interest to those that haven't..

[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jySh9ZfLeKc[/video]

[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5M_KDEKV8w[/video]

[video=480,360]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xw8RCNvZc_k[/video]

 

[nuggethunter]

hey guys just a few questions.
Im new to this detecting game, ive recently purchased a F1A4 level 2 mods. i have the treasure mate II speaker for it.
ive also brought a detech 15x12 sef dd and a 15x8 mono that im waiting to arrive + i have the stock 8" coil.
So far im mostly going out to creswick area.

what would be your go to coil? pros and cons of each.

is speaker better than head phones?

ive done 20ish hours so far and found many of 22 bullets and bullet shells a old half penny a axe head @ 500mm+ deep but no gold as yet.
also many of rusty nails and crap

 

[downhalo]

I prefer the speaker, but you will probably hear more with a good set of headphones.

The stock 8" mono is the most sensitive coil for the F1A4, I currently run the 12x7" NF mono or 11" commander mono for extra coverage.

I've tested out an 14" DD, its fine, but big coils aren't my thing.. works though.

 

[Twapster]

Was interesting at Coles Bridge, had a short play and was a getting nice sweet signal on a Target that was not showing up or showing up as ground chatter on Johns AT Pro. Turned out to be a tiny rusted piece of metal not much bigger than a match head. This machine works! The only down side is ill be doing a lot of digging.

 

[downhalo]

Was interesting at Coles Bridge, had a short play and was a getting nice sweet signal on a Target that was not showing up or showing up as ground chatter on Johns AT Pro. Turned out to be a tiny rusted piece of metal not much bigger than a match head. This machine works! The only down side is ill be doing a lot of digging.

Over the weekend i hunted around some old mine sites, I got a nice signal at decent depth, turned out to be an extremely fine wire, about 1/2mm thic about 5mm in length..

the first time this happened it surprised me, since It hardly detects nuggets that tiny, but when you remember what these machines are built for, its just working as intended..

 

[Twapster]

Yes but id expect a VLF to pick that up any day over the PI. That was the interesting part, unless John had his settings wrong but...there are no settings on the F1A4 to stuff up lol. Turn on and go! Still want the mods done but impressed as a stock machine for the price.

 

[downhalo]

Yep, gotta love it... I'd imagine a gold bug 2 or Eureka would hit on the small target but not at much depth.. which is where the VLF machines fall behind..

 

[AuMan]

hey guys just a few questions.
Im new to this detecting game, ive recently purchased a F1A4 level 2 mods. i have the treasure mate II speaker for it.
ive also brought a detech 15x12 sef dd and a 15x8 mono that im waiting to arrive + i have the stock 8" coil.
So far im mostly going out to creswick area.

what would be your go to coil? pros and cons of each.

is speaker better than head phones?

ive done 20ish hours so far and found many of 22 bullets and bullet shells a old half penny a axe head @ 500mm+ deep but no gold as yet.
also many of rusty nails and crap

Hey Nuggethunter,

With the stock 8" coil you are best running in "small" and timing 2 or 3, 3 won't detect quite as small as 2, but will do a bit better on bigger bits deeper.
Use headphones and set the volume up to a comfortable level, wave something over the coil to make sure you don't have it set too loud. Adjust the threshold so it is just on the edge of quiet, turn up the gain as much as possible, if the ground seems to be too noisy or it doesn't want to ground balance properly, turn the gain back.
The ground balance can be a bit funny at times, this is due to the ground balance having 2 tracking speeds, when the button is held in for longer than 3 seconds the ground tracking changes from normal to a fast track. When this happens pump the coil slower and normally just slowly lowering the coil to the ground with the ground balance button held in will get the ground balance set right. The ground balance tracking speeds explained in the operators manual.

For larger coils, use timing 3 and either medium or large setting depending on the size of target you are chasing, once again adjust the gain as high as possible and the rest of the settings the same. I have used 18" and 25" coils without problems and getting good depth too. Make sure you insert the coil spacers(wooden dowel) between the mounts of the coil so the coil bolt does up properly.
Use your 15X12DD in timing 3, small or medium. Use the 15x8 mono in timing 2 or 3, small or medium, try it with different sized targets and settings to see what gets you the best results.
Use a slow swing speed with the f1a4 to get the best out of it, investigate anything that consistently breaks the threshold. Listen for very slight changes, not just the loud shallow targets. Try burying a bullet to the point where you can just hear it to get the idea of what a faint target sounds like.

Regards,
AuMan

 

[nuggethunter]

hello AuMan.
thank you very much thats just want i wanted to know.
and great way to test it out etc.
have you been using yours long?
what area are you in?
.
re the wooden dowels.
so far i have made up 2x lower shafts for my other coils out of pvc conduit just heat up the ends ram some appropriate sized square in the end to flair it out. making it round to square. fits the army coupling perfect. better than there original does.
The coil end drill the hole for the nylon bolt, heat the end, insert it onto the coils lips. put the bolt in and pivot it so make sure you get full travel. and let it all cool down. file up the end from where the heat curls it up. also shrink wrap the coil end once finished as it makes for a much nicer pivot.

The carry bag that came with it for your belt or shoulder. ive cut the strap off it for the shoulder as i wont be using it this way. cut a square out of the side where the bracket on the F1A4 to attach it to the shaft. hot glue around the cut edges to make it nice and stop it fraying also slotted the lid/cover to close it wile the leads are in etc. this way its still usable on the belt protects it wile on the shaft from weather water scratches etc. does make it a little harder to change the battery's having to take it out of the bag also. but i much prefer not to scratch it and cover it in mud.

im also looking at making up a small tripod just in front of the control box to keep the unit off the ground when on your knees checking targets

thank you again
nuggethunter

 

[downhalo]

im also looking at making up a small tripod just in front of the control box to keep the unit off the ground when on your knees checking targets

Really good idea, my control box is scratched all to hell..

 

[nuggethunter]

yes i found in the first few hours that the box was going to get a fair bit of a work out sitting it on rocks gravel mud .
i was looking the the other minelab covers but they dont cover the ends for rain.
ill post up how i go still haven't decided what to use yet.

 

[MJB]

My mate here at work just bought one of the Mod 2 F1A4 dtectors from Jack Lange. We went out the other day to try it out and although we found no gold it did pick up very small bits of wire and nails...it was screaming its head off over these targets. Neither of us have any idea on detecting but it seemed fairly straight forward and were up and running in no time. The price he payed was probably a little high considering you can find them on ebay for $600 which leads me to ask the question how much would it cost to do the upgrade mods to level 2 status? It seems a whopping profit is being made here by someone

They seem like good peices of kit and as ex army myself I know they would be built tough for a purpose. The army has a policy of auctioning equipment off once its been in service for a certain amount of time regardless of how much its been used. With these detectors, some may have been flogged to death in a training unit somewhere or some may have sat in the back of the Qstore only seeing the light of day when a count was done, hopefully if you buy one it was one of these

Thanks for the info guys, I will pass it on to my mate to help him out a bit.

Cheers

 

[Alex G]

Correct me if I am wrong,those machines have to be manually ground balanced.

 

[downhalo]

Correct me if I am wrong,those machines have to be manually ground balanced.

I guess you could say YES, you have to manually balance them, they have a three position switch Off-On-Momentary..

When held in the momentary position raise and lower the coil to ground balance. To make it easier most of us have installed a momentary button on the handle, and run a connection back to the control box, which shorts the connection between power and balance on the switch..

Makes for quick balance.. I rarely need to balance unless it is extremely hot ground.

 

[Goldpick]

I am guessing you could effectively have two F1A4's, the normal model for small/mid sized nuggets, and the UXO version for deeper targets. Just thinking this after seeing the below listing on US ebay. The F1A4 UXO with 2 large mono coils, and different timing to suit deeper targets.

Either that, or get the original one modified.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/MINELAB-F1A...723?pt=US_Metal_Detectors&hash=item3a921ebb43