Garrett AT Pro in Wet Sand Advice

[mlutz]

I have detected a couple of times on the beach near my house and have noticed that the ATP does unusual readings in the wet sand. I tried ground balancing, but no real difference. Has anyone else had this issue? Maybe it does not like the salt water? In the dry sand it does fine. I am still new to the game so I may not be doing something correctly.

I have found coins, but they were mostly newer and completely roached out. One 1964 D penny cleaned up pretty well. No rings or anything, but lots of bottle tops that I took with me.

 

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[PAScott]

I like many, have had the same same problem. I've heard guys say they have been able to use theirs in the wet sand. They had more patience then me. I've found some coins but it's hard to make the good signal out through all the chatter. It is great in the dry sand though. Best of luck!

 

[mlutz]

I like many, have had the same same problem. I've heard guys say they have been able to use theirs in the wet sand. They had more patience then me. I've found some coins but it's hard to make the good signal out through all the chatter. It is great in the dry sand though. Best of luck!

It may just me still learning the machine. Hopefully some day I will figure it out. Too cold to mess with it now!

 

[G.A.P.metal]

Single Frequency detectors struggle in salt water and wet salt sand.
Get a machine with multi Frequency's.
Gary

 

[Irishgoldhound]

Garrett suggests manually ground balancing negative until you get some stability with the chatter and also adjusting. sensitivity. You will loose some depth but you should be able to differentiate repeatable targets from constant chatter.

 

[RustyGold]

The atp was my first detector and I struggled with it on the wet sand, dry sand no problems. Multi frequency detectors are preferable so I agree with Gary. Best of luck!

 

[Terry Soloman]

Instructions for using the Garrett AT Pro on wet saltwater sand and in saltwater:

Step One: Get a Pulse Induction or Multi-Frequency VLF machine made for saltwater environments.

Step Two: Sell AT Pro.

 

[lookindown]

Your getting some good advice on here....some beaches give the AT problems....here in Florida mine works good in the wet sand and saltwater...you may never get it to work well where you are...one thing you can try is running STANDARD mode...that's the mode I use here to run stable and it gets decent depth.

 

[WaterWalker]

I have used my ATPro in New England wet sand and salt water successfully, but the ATPro is no replacement for a PI or multi-freq detector in salt water. My grandson learned on the ATPro with the 5X8 coil and was also successful in finding silver, gold and coins in salt water.
We set the GB to 17+/- 2 and drop the sensitivity so the instability is acceptable. The only down side is the loss of depth.

 

[tcornel]

All the above advice is correct. You can GB to maybe 13 or 14 and drop sensitivity to 3 or 4 bars from right. After all that messing around you will probably be limited to maybe 3 to 5" depth.

Basically that machine is not designed for salt water. When I had mine I had to GB 3 times from hotel to water. Dry sand, high tide line and then wet sand.

It's inability to handle salt water is the reason I sold it. Now with the CTX I am finding targets up to 2 foot deep in wet sand.

 

[mlutz]

Thanks for all the great advice. I love the machine, it is just tough to figure out in the wet sand. I will try the manual GB and lessen the sensitivity and see how that pans out next time I go.

 

[ChuckT]

I'm a complete newbie amd I've got to ask the "duh" question - How can I tell (other than price?) a multi frequency metal detector from a single frequency detector?

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[cudamark]

I'm a complete newbie amd I've got to ask the "duh" question - How can I tell (other than price?) a multi frequency metal detector from a single frequency detector?

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Look up the specs on the web. You can go to just about any online detector store and they'll have the full info on just about any machine. Look at the operating frequency and the number of frequencies.

 

[ChuckT]

Got an example?

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[Goldfleks]

Get an Excaliber from Minelab and hit the beach.

I already gave up using my single frequency Whites MTX in the wet at the beach. Just not built for that environment, even with a salt setting.

Edit: the beach you are detcting on also heavily influences how well a single frequency machine work on it. My ca beaches with lots of black sand are awful. I hear Flordia beaches work better with single frequency. But a dedicated beach machine is best. Lots of treasure in the waves.

 

[lookindown]

When you run standard, I'm assuming chatter is just gone, and you just get bell tones?

Just saw your question...way less falsing than pro mode for me...I can run 5 of 8 bars sensitivity and run stable...if it starts falsing I drop to 4 bars...if its quite I go up to 6 bars...never had to go below 4 and never been able to get above 6.

 

[Tpmetal]

get an mxsport..... problem solved

 

[cudamark]

get an mxsport..... problem solved

Same problem with the MX Sport.....single frequency VLF. It can't run at max efficiency in salt water. If you have to turn it down to get it stable, you're losing depth.