SoCalBeachScanner
Hero Member
- Aug 17, 2013
- 601
- 547
- 🏆 Honorable Mentions:
- 4
- Detector(s) used
- Garrett ATX, AT Pro, ProPointer, and a weirdly good sense of direction
- Primary Interest:
- All Treasure Hunting
AT PRO in Black Wet Sand - What's the Problem?
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I went back again early this morning to the Belmont Shore area Long Beach, CA. They are renovating two of the beach parking lots. I MD a couple of small areas where they tore up the asphalt in the center of the lot and only found a 1946 Wheat, and a key. I believe that parking lot was originally made in the 50's and was hoping for some silver. If only they tore the whole parking lot up. When the parking lot workers showed up, I moved on to the beach toward the water.
Below is a photo of the hole in the parking lot where I found the Wheat & Old Key, you can also see Catalina Island in the background.
Long Beach has several pockets of Black Wet Sand, and with all the chatter on TNet about how the AT Pro is no good in Saltwater, Saltwater Wet Sand, let alone Saltwater Black Wet Sand, I decided to take note on the settings I use for the AT Pro when in areas of Wet Black Sand, either in or out of the Saltwater.
In Dry Beach Sand I normally do an Auto Ground Balance which usually reads between 91-93 and that is fine. When I worked my way down to the pockets of Black Wet Sand and Auto Ground Balance, it read a 62, and depending on the sound of the Iron, I may manually knock the Ground Balance down an additional 8 or 10. I keep the Sensitivity cranked all the way up in most cases, but sometimes I will knock it down one or two notches when I'm in the saltwater with the heavy minerals. I set the Discrimination at 40 or even 50 with the lowest two notched out (that helps with the thicker pockets of Black Sand). You will always hear a very faint iron sound in the background, but high tone signals come in loud and clear.
In that black patch of Black Wet Sand in the photo below, I had 62 on Ground Balance from just using the Auto Mode, full Sensitivity, and 40 on the Discrimination. I made a couple of passes and only found a couple of pull-tabs and they came in loud and clear with a faint iron sound in the background. Almost like if you have the Iron Audio on.
So the Bottom Line is:
All you "AT Haters" out there
which I believe are just Garrett haters in general. Maybe you should be Hating on the Lack of Experience, and not on the Machine itself. Granted, a good PI Machine will go deeper, but for an All Terrain Machine, how can you beat the User Friendly AT Pro on Price, Features & Effectiveness??
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Two More Interesting Finds Today:
I scanned the side of this big pile of sand and found a Disc Brake Rotor. I also had a good hit on something in wet sand, I scooped, and scooped, and scooped with sand flying. Then I scanned the hole and no sound, so I scanned the area of my flying sand, and noise was everywhere. Come to find out, there was a package of wire end connectors down there and I scattered them about.
Thanks for Swinging By ... Enjoy your Hunt this Weekend
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I went back again early this morning to the Belmont Shore area Long Beach, CA. They are renovating two of the beach parking lots. I MD a couple of small areas where they tore up the asphalt in the center of the lot and only found a 1946 Wheat, and a key. I believe that parking lot was originally made in the 50's and was hoping for some silver. If only they tore the whole parking lot up. When the parking lot workers showed up, I moved on to the beach toward the water.
Below is a photo of the hole in the parking lot where I found the Wheat & Old Key, you can also see Catalina Island in the background.
Long Beach has several pockets of Black Wet Sand, and with all the chatter on TNet about how the AT Pro is no good in Saltwater, Saltwater Wet Sand, let alone Saltwater Black Wet Sand, I decided to take note on the settings I use for the AT Pro when in areas of Wet Black Sand, either in or out of the Saltwater.
In Dry Beach Sand I normally do an Auto Ground Balance which usually reads between 91-93 and that is fine. When I worked my way down to the pockets of Black Wet Sand and Auto Ground Balance, it read a 62, and depending on the sound of the Iron, I may manually knock the Ground Balance down an additional 8 or 10. I keep the Sensitivity cranked all the way up in most cases, but sometimes I will knock it down one or two notches when I'm in the saltwater with the heavy minerals. I set the Discrimination at 40 or even 50 with the lowest two notched out (that helps with the thicker pockets of Black Sand). You will always hear a very faint iron sound in the background, but high tone signals come in loud and clear.
In that black patch of Black Wet Sand in the photo below, I had 62 on Ground Balance from just using the Auto Mode, full Sensitivity, and 40 on the Discrimination. I made a couple of passes and only found a couple of pull-tabs and they came in loud and clear with a faint iron sound in the background. Almost like if you have the Iron Audio on.
So the Bottom Line is:
All you "AT Haters" out there
which I believe are just Garrett haters in general. Maybe you should be Hating on the Lack of Experience, and not on the Machine itself. Granted, a good PI Machine will go deeper, but for an All Terrain Machine, how can you beat the User Friendly AT Pro on Price, Features & Effectiveness??
--
--
Two More Interesting Finds Today:
I scanned the side of this big pile of sand and found a Disc Brake Rotor. I also had a good hit on something in wet sand, I scooped, and scooped, and scooped with sand flying. Then I scanned the hole and no sound, so I scanned the area of my flying sand, and noise was everywhere. Come to find out, there was a package of wire end connectors down there and I scattered them about.
Thanks for Swinging By ... Enjoy your Hunt this Weekend
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