Me And My F1a4

[F1A4 DINASAUR]

Hi Steve,  Thanks for all your good honest and unprejudiced input, so clear even on the difficult bits that no one else can quite explain as you can.  I thought I began late, in 1987 to detect for gold, but now consider myself fortunate to have found plenty of those virgin early patches. I have owned and used the 7000, 6000, 5000 and compared them on varied aussie goldfields. Which one have I preferred as my favorite? none of them.  I use a highly moded MINELAB F1A4 modified by a genius self-taught guy in Melbourne Australia- Mick Spiteri of Detectronics. His most recent mod (level 4) was to enable my gain knob to be turned up significantly and yet the detector remain quiet, giving further depth. Also, with this level 4 mod he has further enhanced its ability on flyspeck bits. Cant wait to use it.  I sold my 7000 because I had to extend the shaft because of my height and to keep the coil well away from my metal knees making it even more unbalanced and strenuous to swing. Yet on measured goldfield tests the hot old F1AF detected as deeply with its Nugget Finder 24x12 mono coil, except on shotgun pellets. Ok, I admit  On a buried sardine-can size lump of lead I had to use a 20" round mono coil to match the 7000. In recent years my prospecting buddy used a 5000 and we compared signal strengths on varied undug nuggets. The F1A4 had the edge when he had to use enhance mode to quieten his 5000, which was most of the time, otherwise, depth ability was similar, with the FIA4 better on big nuggets and mine better on tiny bits.    

Well my buddy got a 6000 later, and it was a wizz on the smooth .3 gram stuff detecting it down to some inches, and my F1A4 finding the same size tiny bits nearby-no disadvantage there. But he was constantly tuning out the EMI on gloomy days. It would have driven me mad, and even on sunny days he had to do the same procedure but not nearly as often. Tell me guys, is it a faulty 6000, or are they all the same? ? Well last trip out, I found a patch of about 60 rough reef gold bits from .1 gram to 7 grams each, with some ironstone attached. Ugliest gold I have ever seen, in an area the size of a lounge room. "You will get lots more with your 6000 if you go over my patch,"  I confidently predicted. Well he did go over it , carefully, and found two 4 grammers under a rotten dead log I hadn't yet moved- but not a grain more. And if you didn't know, the F1A4 is the quitest P.I. you will find in stormy weather and handles hot ground as well as any. (Havent tried the new Garret PI but as Steve loves it I would love to try one)  But don't think other modifiers can implement the same F1A4 detector transformation- not in my experience- and I sold detectors for 25 years until I retired a few years ago. Now you understand why I stick to it and it's not due to sentimentalism.       

[Steve Herschbach]

Welcome to the forum! Sound like an interesting rig you have that does well for you. I recall there were a lot of surplus F1A4 around a few years ago but that supply seems to have dried up. Thanks for sharing some information about a detector few have heard about.

[Aureous]

Great machine once they're modded but ya gotta get used to the ground-grab ground balancing method. The ones Ive used were superbly sensitive too. Needs an add-on battery system to avoid using the D cells as well. Mick has done a great job with these...