How To Get More Useful Depth With Your AT Pro / AT Gold

John-Edmonton

Silver Member
Mar 21, 2005
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Garrett- Master Hunter CX,Infinium, 1350, 2500, ACE 150-water converted 250, GTA 500,1500 Scorpion, AT Pro
* With the AT Pro, learn and hunt in Pro mode. It is deeper then standard mode. With the AT Gold, the all metal mode is deeper then Disc 1 or Disc 2.


* Has a place been hunted out? Go back and try again after a good rain soaking. Moist wet soil gives better sensitivity and greater depth readings for targets.


* If you get a nice high aHow To Get Maximum Depth + Performance Out Of Your AT Series ( Pro & Gold)
udio and a VDI in the 70's or 80's, dig it.


* The larger the coil the deeper it goes. However, too many targets under a large coil can mask a good target. If you get a slight good audio using the large coil, lift it up 2-3 inches and center the coil where the good audio was. Often times the good target will be much clearer.


* Get a coil cover and scrub the ground. Some people scan the ground inches above it...."DON'T" You can gain a couple of inches scrubbing, which is significant.


* Don't swing too fast! Just because it has a very fast "recovery speed"......doesn't mean it can always pick out that one good silver coin amongst several pieces of junk. The electronics still need to process lots of information.


"SWING TOO FAST, YOU WILL COME IN LAST"


* Swinging too fast can make you a sloppy hunter. You also risk eventually cracking/breaking your coil and elephant ears from the constant banging on trees, playground equipment or concrete.


* If you are getting lots of EMI or increased mineralization which is causing erratic audio, try adjusting your discrimination first, before lowering the sensitivity. This sometimes lets the machine run smoother without losing any depth.


* If you get mixture of audio signals, scan the target from different directions. Sometimes a good target is beside or partially underneath a good target. The AT Series has a unique ability to pick out those good targets amongst the trash. Going at the target from different directions allows the AT Pro to perform even better!


* Ground balance your machine occasionally. Temperature can change, and directly affect the settings. Hunting in shade vs. sun can vary. "a 14 degree difference on a lawn area to a 35 degree difference on a parking lot." But, the mineralization can also change between areas....so again...ground balance periodically.


* To increase the depth/sensitivity to silver targets, lower the ground balanced numbers a few points


* If you are hunting an area that is absolutely covered with nails, try ground balancing out a nail until it is nothing but a small amount of static. Now....all the copper & silver targets will give a loud audio response....BUT the target ID will be off.

*Bottle cap? Stomp hard on the target. Often times, an old bottles cap's halo will break, and the reading will change from a good coin sounding target to a bottle cap or junk.
Don't forget to use the iron audio feature if searching for coins or silver.

* Build a test garden...use good & bad targets at different depths. You will soon discover that deep silver targets beyond depths of 8 or more inches begin to not sound off as a high pitch or that the VDI numbers remain in the 80's. That is very good information to know. My rule of thumb states if it's deep....it's old. Dig it! It costs you nothing.

34_test20garden_12.jpg


pro pointer snowman.jpg
 

pkb

Hero Member
Feb 10, 2013
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Two Garrett AT PRO's, two Garrett pro pointers
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good info!!! Have used this info for a long time.
 

swagman

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Nov 9, 2014
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Nebraska
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Equinox 800,Teknetic T2LTD, Teknetic 5'' & 11'' coil, AT PRO, Nokta Pin Pointer, Vulcan 360 Pin Pointer, 5 x 8 Coil, Nell 15'' Attack coil, one bum eye and selective hearing.
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Very informative, thank you.

About the lifting coil part, I thought lifting the coil on a target and it still sounds off meant it was possibly trash or does that depend on how high you lift the coil?
 

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John-Edmonton

John-Edmonton

Silver Member
Mar 21, 2005
4,395
3,934
Canada
Detector(s) used
Garrett- Master Hunter CX,Infinium, 1350, 2500, ACE 150-water converted 250, GTA 500,1500 Scorpion, AT Pro
Depending on how high the coil goes, it can tell the user if the target might in fact be junk and larger then a coin. But....you also have to know your detector well. You need to know how high the coil can go at a probable distance from a coin on your machine. That takes many hours of hunting. You also have to factor in the tone of the audio, the smoothness, the numerical target ID probability, the sound of the target when you move the coil away from the target while still holding the pinpoint button and normal depth capabilities of your detector.
 

gamiller

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May 20, 2013
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fisher cz-21

Whites beach hunter300
minelab equinox 800
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Very informative ,thanks
 

david680

Bronze Member
Jun 4, 2014
1,565
1,445
Salem, Indiana
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Tesoro Bandido
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Thanks for this. Utilized some of this today and it helped me recover several coins that I might not of even heard without this. I knew some of this, but some of it I understood better because of reading this. Think I'll review it from time to time.
 

Jeremy S

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Feb 27, 2012
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As always, great advice!

I have dug deep old coins that had no ID number, just an occasional, non-repeatable, high tone.
 

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John-Edmonton

John-Edmonton

Silver Member
Mar 21, 2005
4,395
3,934
Canada
Detector(s) used
Garrett- Master Hunter CX,Infinium, 1350, 2500, ACE 150-water converted 250, GTA 500,1500 Scorpion, AT Pro
As always, great advice!

I have dug deep old coins that had no ID number, just an occasional, non-repeatable, high tone.

And often times those are best finds of the day.
 

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