thadious
Sr. Member
- #1
Thread Owner
I have done a lot of research on different detectors and decided on the Garret At Pro. I watched several videos of people using them in real life and decided that it should work for me. I live in Hemet Ca and went to American Prospector in Temecula Ca. I met Jim and his daughter there. I asked several questions about the metal detecting in the area and they answered as best as they could. Their service was outstanding and friendly. I bought the At Pro and took it home and put it together. Now I am disabled with a bad back which started acting up so I originally thought I would not be able to go out today. I took some pain pills lay down and slept for about three hours and got up around 1530 that's 3:30 pm for you non military types. I felt better and decided I just had to get out and see what it could do. I went right into pro, ground balanced in manual which came up as an 80 and stayed that way throughout the park. I started with iron audio off and standard coin mode. I soon got a nickel/pull tab signal at 2 inches and tried to pinpoint it. I have to say it will take me a while to get the pin pointing down pat. The video Garrett puts up is a little confusing. I tried centering it in the middle but did not have much luck so ended up just using the old wiggle routine and pinpointed from the front. I finally got my white's bull's eye pin pointer to vibrate where the target was and dug up a bottle cap. I soon switched to iron audio mode and stayed that way for the rest of the hunt. Now I will say this if any of you have seen the garret video for iron discrimination it will show a bottle cap showing up around 27. I was set at 35 so should have not seen it according to the video. I found three bottle caps one in the low 50's range one I can't remember and one that range up in the low 80's. Each of these were different bottle caps so metal property's could be different. After finding a few pull tabs and penny's I notched out every thing below 80. I still had iron audio on and it chattered quite a bit. I found a few dimes and quarters and have to say they were distinct in sounding among the iron signals. I was out there for about and hour and a half then the back pain came back with a vengeance so I had to quit. Now totals for this little hunt and mind you I dug nothing that was deeper than 2 to 4 inches I found 3 quarters 3 dimes and two pennys. Most of these were on or just below the surface. I think I did ok for a first hunt with the machine, especially since I was more interested in learning the machine than finds. My first impression of the At Pro is it is a fine machine but in professional will take some time to learn properly. I have no complaints for now about the machine as it was my first hunt and any problems encountered were the result of the operator meaning me. I am looking forward to spending many hours hunting with this machine. May all your finds be interesting and your days full of joy. Happy Hunting. Ted 
The more you run it,the more you will like it! I've had 3 back surgerys,and can tell you that most people start out leaning over the detector. Try standing straight upright,and lengthen the lower rod out on the detector,until it is about 6" infront of your foot when you take a step. Until I got mine adjusted right (for me) my back was killing me after a hour of detecting. Now I can go for hours pain free.
