AT Pro at the beach

[Viddy]

Location: Outer Banks, NC vacation
Detector: AT Pro
Conditions: on and off drizzle, damp and wet sand, waves

I used my ETrac on the beach yesterday and due the the off and on showers all day, took the AT Pro out today on the beach. I have the stock headphones, so I new I was OK with getting the detector under water but keepign the headphones out of the surf. I never detected on the beach until this vacation and heard about the ETrac's stability, depth, etc on the beach, which did hold true yesterday. BUT... I tell you what.... the AT Pro was VERY impressive on the east coast beach! Here's a few things that I noticed and were very surprising and different from detecting inland:

Ground balancing?: I used the auto ground balancing function and after pumping the coil up and down a few times it set at 15! HUGE difference from my normal 70's and 80's!

Chatter?: The AT Pro ran as good on the beach as it did inland. smooth and quiet. A few times, I actually brought the detector to my aluminum scoop a few times to make sure it was on and working. I was very surprised, especially hearing about how tough the beach is. The only chatter I got was detecting along the waterline and when the detector gets washed over by waves. it gets chatty and I am guessing from all the sand and salt water being washed over it.

Sensitivity?: believe it or not, I ran it 1 bar down from the max and for a while had it on full bars in the damp/dry sand.
Depth?: I dug some coins out along the waterline at about 8 inches or so. I actually had to time the waves out so my holes were not getting filled by the next wave, before I could scoop deeper.

Standard-Pro Mode?: I ran it with 0 discrim. I started out in Standard Mode but then switched to Pro Mode. I noticed that in Pro Mode, the deep buried coins near junk sounded off really nicely, and much better to pinpoint, which is tougher in sand than in land.

AT Pro in the waves?: yesterday, I heard from a local who uses a Sand Shark and another with a White's PI water detector that 'the best place is just in the water where the waves break near the shore'. No way to risk the ETrac taking a wave over the control box, BUT, after checking all the O-rings on the coil, headphones, and battery compartment, I set out prepared to have the AT Pro take a dunk! I have the stock headphones, so I knew not to get too crazy or risk falling and getting the headphones submerged, but had quite a few big waves wash over the AT Pro and it performed flawless. It was kinda wierd hearing tones with the entire detector under water...lol

Issues/Problems?: The only thing that was a problem was when I first got on the beach, even after auto ground balancing, I had to switch channels. No idea why, but the channel I had always run it on was chatty. The other 3 were quiet as a church mouse. It actually happened yesterday when I was using the ETrac and my girlfriend had the AT Pro. After I switched channels she was good to go.

So, that is my evaluation of the AT Pro on the beach, which was a first for me. if anyone from Garrett reads this(?), you get the thumbs up for an amazing detector at the price you sell it at. It's kinda like the Jeep of metal detectors. It is truely ALL TERRAIN.

Viddy

 

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[svensken77]

Good to hear it works for someone.
I was out on the beach yesterday too here i Sweden and it didnt work at all in the water, used it in PRO mode, zero, tried to groundbalance it with auto and it went Down to 03-04 but didnt get quiet at all, even tried manual balance down to 00 still the same. It was very much chatter and sounded like there was metalobject everywhere all the time. Tried to put down sensitivity down too but no difference there either.
Got very dissapointet on the At PRO since the reason i upgraded from the ACE 350 was just for saltwater use.
Am i doing something wrong or do i have to live with it not working in the water?? It works really good in dry sand though...

 

[signal_line]

Viddy, glad to hear your machine works nice. I have used my AT Gold on wet sand (not saltwater beach) and although the ID numbers were not accurate for the deep ones I was finding coins at 12 inches with the 5x8 double D coil. There was some chatter at the highest sensitivity level but it didn't bother me. I was very impressed with the performance. I have run a multi-frequency machine over sand and I did not find targets as deep.

I know larger coils do not work as well as the smaller ones in hot ground. I also know in very hot ground if you hold the coil up off the ground (as much as four inches) you can get better depth.

 

[lookindown]

Location: Outer Banks, NC vacation
Detector: AT Pro
Conditions: on and off drizzle, damp and wet sand, waves

I used my ETrac on the beach yesterday and due the the off and on showers all day, took the AT Pro out today on the beach. I have the stock headphones, so I new I was OK with getting the detector under water but keepign the headphones out of the surf. I never detected on the beach until this vacation and heard about the ETrac's stability, depth, etc on the beach, which did hold true yesterday. BUT... I tell you what.... the AT Pro was VERY impressive on the east coast beach! Here's a few things that I noticed and were very surprising and different from detecting inland:

Ground balancing?: I used the auto ground balancing function and after pumping the coil up and down a few times it set at 15! HUGE difference from my normal 70's and 80's!

Chatter?: The AT Pro ran as good on the beach as it did inland. smooth and quiet. A few times, I actually brought the detector to my aluminum scoop a few times to make sure it was on and working. I was very surprised, especially hearing about how tough the beach is. The only chatter I got was detecting along the waterline and when the detector gets washed over by waves. it gets chatty and I am guessing from all the sand and salt water being washed over it.

Sensitivity?: believe it or not, I ran it 1 bar down from the max and for a while had it on full bars in the damp/dry sand.
Depth?: I dug some coins out along the waterline at about 8 inches or so. I actually had to time the waves out so my holes were not getting filled by the next wave, before I could scoop deeper.

Standard-Pro Mode?: I ran it with 0 discrim. I started out in Standard Mode but then switched to Pro Mode. I noticed that in Pro Mode, the deep buried coins near junk sounded off really nicely, and much better to pinpoint, which is tougher in sand than in land.

AT Pro in the waves?: yesterday, I heard from a local who uses a Sand Shark and another with a White's PI water detector that 'the best place is just in the water where the waves break near the shore'. No way to risk the ETrac taking a wave over the control box, BUT, after checking all the O-rings on the coil, headphones, and battery compartment, I set out prepared to have the AT Pro take a dunk! I have the stock headphones, so I knew not to get too crazy or risk falling and getting the headphones submerged, but had quite a few big waves wash over the AT Pro and it performed flawless. It was kinda wierd hearing tones with the entire detector under water...lol

Issues/Problems?: The only thing that was a problem was when I first got on the beach, even after auto ground balancing, I had to switch channels. No idea why, but the channel I had always run it on was chatty. The other 3 were quiet as a church mouse. It actually happened yesterday when I was using the ETrac and my girlfriend had the AT Pro. After I switched channels she was good to go.

So, that is my evaluation of the AT Pro on the beach, which was a first for me. if anyone from Garrett reads this(?), you get the thumbs up for an amazing detector at the price you sell it at. It's kinda like the Jeep of metal detectors. It is truely ALL TERRAIN.

Viddy

Ive had the same results with my AT down here in Florida. It auto gb at 15 in wet sand and saltwater. I use mine on sports fields, old home sites, tot lots, freshwater and saltwater. Its light weight and truly all terrain. Ive made numerous gold finds with it. I love my AT pro.

 

[Viddy]

Svensken77 ... try changing the channel. You have 4 of them. Another guy who uses the AT Pro on another blog had the same issue on Channel 1, and Channel 2 was totally quiet, as well as the other 3. I bet that solves it.

 

[svensken77]

Ok i will do a little reading in the instructions and find out where to change the channel and try that next time out and maybe i dont have to send the detector to Germany for repair. . Would be super if it worked..

 

[Zodiacdiverdave]

Svensken77, I think you may have pulled down the GB too much. Perhaps you were Ground balancing over some metal objects. Next time your at the beach try Manual GB at 11-15 then adjust from there 1 or 2 points at a time. If it doesn't quite down then change freq. and try again.
Good luck next time out.
ZDD

 

[svensken77]

Svensken77, I think you may have pulled down the GB too much. Perhaps you were Ground balancing over some metal objects. Next time your at the beach try Manual GB at 11-15 then adjust from there 1 or 2 points at a time. If it doesn't quite down then change freq. and try again.
Good luck next time out.
ZDD

I have tried the auto GB on a couple different spots in the water on the same beach and it goes down to about 03-04 itself and also manual Gb up and down at different numbers but nothing works.
I have contacted Garrett about the problem and they will send a new Coil, hopefully it wil work better or else they say i should send my detector to Germany for service/repair but im a bit sceptic and thinking its nothing wrong with it and its just too much minerals and black sand here in Swedens west coast.
I was told in an earlier response that i should try different channel but i have to read the manuals for that and try that next time too.
The AT PRO works great on the dry sand and i have found alot of money on a beach that i have already been searching with my Ace 350 two times.
im gonna make a video of my next try in water if the new coil dont solve the problem and post on youtube for hints and tips but it will take a week or two cuz i have a motorcycletrip to do next week..

 

[JimH]

Viddy,
Glad to hear your Garrett AT Pro worked well at the OBX. Were you able to search throughout Corolla, Duck, etc w/any level of success? Did you find early morning,or late afternoon more beneficial?

All the best,
J.