AT GOLD GOOD IN IRON COMPARED TO WHAT????

Calabash Digger

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Calabash Digger

Calabash Digger

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I hope the swing on the gold meets every ones standards.
 

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Calabash Digger

Calabash Digger

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Thanks, it is a very telling video .IMO
 

TheEquinoxHunter

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Nov 22, 2018
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This is why garrett detectors are garbage. Anyone who says otherwise is a novice
 

Bottlecapbill

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As a long time user of the original AT Pro International (not the gold or max because they have inferior audio) I can say this video is accurate. That being said, there are three things you never want to do with your AT pro when hunting in iron, or at all really.

The first is, never use any mode other than pro zero. Just don't do it......you'll find stuff but the amount of information you get from a target is halved in any of the bell tone modes.

The second is NEVER EVER use iron audio. It's a huge setback as you can see in this video. It turns your one inch detection zone into a one foot wide detection zone. I don't know if it's because the recovery speed drops horribly, or because fairies are doing calculus in the coil.......whatever it is, NEVER use iron audio.

The last is NEVER use discrimination if you're trying to hunt in iron. Again, your recovery time seems to die AND the audio comes out all delayed and poppy and sketchy and you don't get a real feel for anything under the coil other than large objects.

If you want to hunt iron with the pro you need to swing slow, pro zero, wide open and become one with the noise lol. Once you practice you'll be able to pick out keepers by detecting the unusual tone changes in the noise. Will you find everything? Hell no. With enough practice you should be able to find most of it assuming you're not too lazy to dig fairly sketchy but unusual sounds, since most of them won't be obvious dig me tones. I've run over my old AT pro sites with my Kruzer(similar to the anfibio) and I haven't found much that was missed, although I have found some, mostly in 4khz mode. I'll add to that, this is only on sites where I had the time to really work. If you only have a few hours on a site, you're not going to want to use the pro.

I still feel the pro performs better than some of the newer machines in a few areas(mostly urban) but for relic hunting in iron, or silver sniping at depth not so much.

Calabash, I do love your channel and vids. Maybe just for some piece of mind you could do this same test in pro zero, no disk, no iron audio to see if that dime pops up? Maybe I'm full of it but it's winter up here so I can't do it myself. I just need to know! I'm 90% sure it will. :)
 

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Calabash Digger

Calabash Digger

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I will but it will be the same result. It will be when I get a AT PRO around remember the gold runs different. Remember on the pro with no disc your stuck with all that iron noise that you cant adjust the volume on. As you can see from the kruzer there is a benefit to a adjustable iron volume. I hate to tell you this but if you have been hunting iron loaded sites with the pro you need to raise the multi kruzer FREQ to the high end and go find all the targets you left in the ground.
 

Bottlecapbill

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I know you can't adjust the iron volume but the iron audio has two features. If you run any discrimination (1-99) and select the iron audio button you'll hear that god awful iron audio mess of noise with no recovery time that we see in your video. If you run without discrimination (set to 0 only) and select the iron audio, all targets hitting in the iron range will go silent. So while you can't adjust the volume of the tones, you can turn the iron tones off. Iron audio is a dual feature in that respect.

I always ran pro zero mode, no discrimination, no iron audio(for max recovery speed) so I can hear everything and then slow down to a reasonable speed to catch the high tones. It worked well for me on the original AT PRo. It's tougher on the AT Gold and AT max though because Garrett went with a duller set of tones on those machines for some unknown reason. Each version of the pro should still pass this nail test in the video though, set up the way I suggested.

You can also run pro zero mode, 0 discrimination, iron audio on........so you only hear the mid and high tones but I find silencing the iron also tends to hurt recovery speed which can cause you to miss targets again. Iron audio is just not useful in my opinion.

I think most of the more successful AT Pro users probably run the same way I do. Pro zero is the equivalent of Disc 1 mode on the AT gold and Zero mode on the At max.

I have gone over my old sites with the Kruzer. I never found much in the 19khz mode but to be honest I stopped using it because every tiny hot rock, or fleck of foil, or bit of rust sounded good in that mode lol. It's like the number of targets doubled on me and I gave up because I can't tear the parks up that badly. I did mange to pull some missed keepers in the 4khz mode. Not as many as you might think, but some. My pro did a better job than I expected to be honest, but only because I ran it as I explained above and I had a lot of time to work those sites. I also have to admit that I only got about 24 hours of time on my Kruzer before winter hit. Maybe next season things will be different.
 

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Calabash Digger

Calabash Digger

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Get some more time on the kruzer in the higher freqs and you will see what I mean. BTW that is the way I ran my AT PRO back when I used one all the time. Imo it doesnt change the recovery speed no more than it did when I cut the iron audio off on the AT Gold. When I get a AT PRO around here I will show you the same test and what happens with it. You see as a relic where I coming from as you said it DOUBLED the number of targets you were seeing with the AT PRO. As a relic hunter on old sites that is exactly what I need.
 

HighVDI

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This is why garrett detectors are garbage. Anyone who says otherwise is a novice

I am by no means a Garrett fan (except for pinpointers) but garbage I think is a stretch! The At series is simply long in the tooth.
 

signal_line

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i don't watch any more of your videos. I don't think any comparison video is very accurate especially when the maker has a known bias against Garrett. But I will say the ground balance on the AT Gold needs to be checked quite often. If you read the manual it says even a few numbers off in rough ground will have an effect. Of course it is easy to check and takes about five seconds. Sometimes I check it every ten feet. Some ground the auto balance does not work particularly well and you need to go to manual. That's part of the deal when you pay hundreds less. I only use the Iron Audio to check iffy targets and it works pretty good on bottle caps and such. The manuals says the same thing. I worked a trashy park for four hours and dug two or three rusted out caps. I think the All Metal mode is where it does the best. The discriminator is not all that good. The AT Gold is not a new machine. Been around since 2012. Some machines probably have wear and tear. Recovery speed is very good, so just reading about your complaints makes me think the machine you were using might not be in top shape. It wasn't a best seller like many of the other Garrett machines. Almost every year a Garrett machine is the best seller. Price, easy to use, good enough performance. I would also mention there is and has been a big propaganda campaign in the metal detector world, probably forty years at least. Most from what some call the snob machines.
 

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Calabash Digger

Calabash Digger

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Yeah I could see where it must be IMMPOSSIBLE for what I am showing to be true...….Cognitive dissonance
 

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signal_line

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LOL it took the mfrs about seven years to catch up.
 

Minelab Matt

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Maybe just for some piece of mind you could do this same test in pro zero, no disk, no iron audio to see if that dime pops up? Maybe I'm full of it but it's winter up here so I can't do it myself. I just need to know! I'm 90% sure it will. :)

Hey, I could put some nice fancy Xmas gift wrap around one of my turds....but it's still gonna be a turd..lol

Matt
 

Minelab Matt

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I always here the how good the AT GOLD is iron wearing the 5x8 coil. My question is compared to what? I put it up against a few detectors in this video to see how it stacks up on a very simple recovery speed iron test . Please feel free to open up a good honest discussion about this video.


Good video Calabash.

I know the AT series were not great in iron....but I was VERY shocked that it failed 100% to see the target!

Phew....glad I got my Equinox 800.

Matt
 

AllenJ

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I like your video too Calabash, thank you for posting. I have to ask though did someone actually think the AT Gold would be better at target separation than the NOX or XP DEUS? I ran my AT Gold for about 6 month before I upgraded but in that time I dug more than a few holes that ended up being multiple targets close together upon re-checking.
 

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