Fisher F19 Metal Detector

Due to life, location and a hunger to craft a future as a musician, metal detecting evaporated from my life for many years. It was always an afterthought but something I never acted upon. It was years before I’d find myself in a situation where I could start searching again. There was a perfect synchronicity to how it reentered my life. I was having a conversation with my dad and he mentioned mud larking, I’d been under the impression that permits were like gold dust and you needed to know a “secret handshake” to get excepted into the fold. Little did I know it was just a simple cases of purchasing a licence from the port authority. Having the River Thames a stones throw from my front door, it made the decision an easy one. Having been out the metal detecting game for a long time I knew I’d have to purchase a new machine, my old Fisher 1265x just wouldn’t cut it. Instead of falling down the “Youtube rabbit hole” of reviews, depth tests and comparison videos, I thought I’d keep it old school and head down to Joan Allen Metal Detectors to get some advice. 

The VDI Display Was New To Me

Arriving at the store I was surprised by the new fangled machines that hung all over the wall, it was clear that detectors had come on in leaps and bounds. After a relatively detailed conversation about Thames detecting, the Fisher F19 with a 5’ coil seemed to be the way to go. I liked the idea of this, having grown up using a Fisher detector it was like being reunited with, ‘a slightly more technical’ old friend. Holding the machine I was really surprised at how light it was, it felt good in the hands, best of all it had the classic Fisher gold and black finish, the only real difference between this and my old Fisher, this detector had a screen as opposed to a series of buttons, switches and knobs. Experimenting with it by putting a number of targets on the showroom floor, I was more than impressed with it’s super fast recovery speed and separation, hearing those tones ringing in my ears instantly brought back memories of old. It was a little strange to me though, taking into how long I’d been out the game, what Fisher had been producing over the years hadn’t exactly progressed, I was really surprised that they were still pushing the F75 as their flagship machine. Putting all that aside it was clear that the F19 was going to be the perfect tool for the Thames and I couldn’t wait to get going with it.

Tower Bridge On The River 

Studying the manual it didn’t seem all that complicated, the V-Break allowed me to assign a low tone and the ‘notch’ and ‘notch width’ gave me the option of knocking certain numbers/items out. The all metal mode was something new to me but I knew I wouldn’t be able to run that on the Thames. I was intrigued to use this option in the fields though, the higher you turned up the all metal mode a threshold would start to hum. This combined with the gain set high would allow the F19 to punch just that little bit deeper. Before venturing out I got a load of old coins, modern coins, bottle caps and trash and started to make a mental note of the numbers that specific items rang in at and the characteristics “said item” had on the tone. One element that I loved was the grunt and buzz it gave on iron and I was super impressed with how it dealt with larger pieces of iron and trash, it discriminated it out with a weird ‘out of phase’ type stutter. Putting coins and trash close together, not only was the recovery speed exceptional but the large pieces of trash didn’t mask out the good targets. Even if the trash was resting on a coin, with the correct ‘wiggle technique’ you still got the high tone in with the grunt and a solid VDI number.

Possibly An Old Naval Button

I have to say that being out with the metal detector was magic and I suddenly realised just how much I missed it, it was like a bomb detonated inside my head and I knew that this was something that I’d now be doing for the rest of my days. Not only that, being on the Thames foreshore gave me a completely different perspective of London. All of a sudden it didn’t seem so ugly, I’ve lived here for more than 20 years and most of time I feel caged, getting out on the foreshore added a certain beauty I’d never seen in the city before. The world was racing around me but I wasn't taking it in, once you turn your machine on, put the headphones in and you starting sweeping the coil, nothing else matters. 

5" Coil & 10/5" Concentric Stock Coil

After a few relatively long hunts over a number of weeks, using the F19 became second nature, it was simply a joy to use. Due to its fast recovery speed you can get away with swinging fast and it does a great job of separating everything. I was also super impressed with the size of the items I was detecting, it locked on to the tiniest pieces similar to the size of an earring stud, sometimes smaller. Coins would ring up with a very bold and sharp tone, the VDI numbers don’t waiver on good targets at all and its pinpointing ability is spot on. However, I prefer the ‘trigger’ pinpointing of my old 1265x way more than the push button approach on the F19. For the majority of my hunting on the Thames I’m using the 5’ inch coil for its ability to separate, however, the sandy areas that are a very similar make up to a sandy beach I use the 10/5’ concentric stock coil, this punches deeper than the 5’ inch.  Another positive, due to the F19 having a manual ground balance option, there’s no excess chatter or interference from both the sand or the environment in general, this is something I find very impressive for a single frequency machine. 

All in all I'm impressed with the operation of the F19 and it's perfect for what I want to use it for, the few downsides for me are as follows. It's not really a 'deep' punching machine, there are far better detectors out there in the similar price range that punch a lot deeper. Secondly, I feel like Fishers build quality is lacking and dated, I have the coil extended to it's maximum length and something feels 'goofy' to me, almost like the coil isn't quite straight. Also after a month of use the whole detector makes a loud creak every time you swing it. Do I think its worth the price-tag? in all honesty, no I don't. When you look at companies like Nokta Makro, Minelab and even Quest, for Fisher to stay in the game they're going to have to pull something serious out the bag otherwise I can't see them being around in the next 10 years or so. But putting all that aside the F19 is ideal for the specific hunting I plan to be doing with it and that's what counts.

Thames Side