AT-Pro: Messing around at Surfside Beach

[Terrafisher]

Decided to try the AT-Pro out at Surfside Beach today.

Nothing spectacular, dug a lot of junk, bottle caps, and can tabs, and also found a little clad.

The AT-Pro was hitting constantly on clad - mainly quarters and dimes, but also dug a few pennies.

I'm really impressed with the way it pulls the dimes out! It's like a dime magnet!

Can't wait to try it out on the seawall at Galveston.

 

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[Les West Central Fl]

How does it do on salt wet sand? Is it stable or does it false?

 

[Terrafisher]

How does it do on salt wet sand? Is it stable or does it false?

I had no problems with falsing. I just used the auto ground balance to balance it when I was at the water edge, and rebalanced it again when I went up closer to the dune line in the dry sand. My wife actually got hers out into the shallow surf (about a foot deep) and still had no issues.

We're plenty pleased with the AT-Pros on the beach.

 

[surfnturf]

No nickels Strange

 

[lookindown]

How does it do on salt wet sand? Is it stable or does it false?

I've had my AT PRO in the water on the west coast of Florida and no problem with falsing. I ran 5 to 6 bars sens and even in the surf wash it was stable. The manual said the wash may cause falsing, so I was really surprised.

 

[bigscoop]

I'm split 50/50....half of me is happy that I waited to get one until all the bugs are worked out, the other half of me is unhappy that I don't yet have one. Can't win for losing.

 

[Terrafisher]

No nickels Strange

Not really, as I was running custom discrimination on mine. I'm sure I was missing stuff, but I had everything below 80 notched out for my beach test (I was mainly going for coins and silver today). My wife, brother, and sis-in-law found a couple of nickels, but they were also digging a load of buried pop tops, buried Budwiser cans, and foil. I just got tired of digging down 6 to 8 plus inches just to find a beer can myself, so I started playing with the discrimination settings.

I actually found one of the quarters at between 8 to 10 inches in some VERY heavy shell laden sand. I was also having a great deal of issues with digging what looked like slag chunks - dug LOTS of these at first.

Besides us, there were also three or four other people working the beach with detectors, and we had gotten a late start - almost 10 by the time we actually got there, so no telling how much of the area was already hunted by the others.

Wife and sis-in-law were both running AT-Pros, and brother was running a Whites QXT Pro. He actually made the best score by digging an old mercury dime when we first got there, but from that point on his digs were mainly pennies and a couple of other newer dimes. He kept commenting that he needs to buy him an AT-Pro.

All in all, a fun day. The AT-Pro worked really well on the beach (in spite of the really heavy trash). It can be set as a "dig everything" or discriminated to just dig select targets with great results.

 

[Smudge]

Are you satisfied with the depth at the beach?

 

[Terrafisher]

Smudge, I was hitting coins anywhere from 2" to 6" constantly and consistently with clear signals, and a couple as much as 8". (Let me add, they had just dumped another 4 to 6" of fresh crushed dredge shell and sand over the top of one part of the area I was hunting too, burying most of the coins at least 4" deeper than they were already) I'd have to say, yes, that's a decent depth for coinshooting on the beach. I can't say for relics though, as I was mainly looking for silver and clad, and had most of the rest discriminated out.

As I wrote above, if it wasn't one of those two "iffy" signals, it was actually a coin when I dug, and for the most part close to the depth indicated. I did notice that occasionally the depth would read much deeper than the coin actually was (10" when actually at 4 to 6" - maybe due to the mineralization?) but it was only a minor irritant, and didn't happen very often.

I still have my Sovereign GT for the serious deep seeking and surfline, but for simple coinshooting, I really had fun using the AT-Pro on the beach. It was light, easy to swing, and I could cover a LOT of ground FAST with it.

The main thing I had to keep reminding myself was to "use the ground balance when I moved from dry to wet". As long as I did that, the machine performed great! I could ALMOST run full sensitivity (usually only had one or two bars open) without a chatter at all as long as I remembered to rebalance.

Take the AT-Pro to the beach with you, you'll have a lot of fun with it too!