garrett ATP leaving a couple guys new to them scratching our heads

[cott1300]

My good friend & i just bought us both new ATP's last week, we are both noticing something that makes us scratch our heads. both of these machine's do this, on deeper targets 8in & up we will get the good high pitch ding ding ding & a reference # reading fairly high, mid-80's to 90+ range but when we get down to the target more often then not its a old rusty nail or a small hunk of rotten iron. mine does it in coin mode & when i do my own custom map using high iron discrim & only looking in the upper coin range, my friends is doing the iden same thing. i've also messed with the sensitivity but to no avail. I'm actually not real happy with my ATP right now & hope its me doing something wrong cause i have an ace 250 that performs imo better then my atp & that cant be right, help!!!!

 

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[John-Edmonton]

Large iron will in fact read as a good target at times, and the deeper a target is, the less discrimination reliability you get. That is standard for all single amd multi frequency metal detectors. You might want to re-ground balance your metal detector and possibly turn your sensitivity down a few numbers. Too much sensitivity in moderate ground will not give you more depth, but may give you less and less reliability for your target ID.

I presume you are hunting in Pro Mode? If you have our iron discrimination turned up to 35-40 and iron audio turned on, you should be getting that low iron grunt which will alert you that there is in fact iron under that coil, and you can choose to dig it/leave it. Give the AT Pro some time to learn. It's a great machine. When set up properly for your conditions, it will do real well.

 

[el padron]

My good friend & i just bought us both new ATP's last week, we are both noticing something that makes us scratch our heads. both of these machine's do this, on deeper targets 8in & up we will get the good high pitch ding ding ding & a reference # reading fairly high, mid-80's to 90+ range but when we get down to the target more often then not its a old rusty nail or a small hunk of rotten iron. mine does it in coin mode & when i do my own custom map using high iron discrim & only looking in the upper coin range, my friends is doing the iden same thing. i've also messed with the sensitivity but to no avail. I'm actually not real happy with my ATP right now & hope its me doing something wrong cause i have an ace 250 that performs imo better then my atp & that cant be right, help!!!!

Not to worry, The GPX 5000's do the same thing right out of the box

 

[RobRieman]

Welcome to the wonderful hobby! Deep aluminum cans sound even better and there's no iron to grunt back at you. If it's deep and large it's usually junk. Except when it's a jar full of silver dollars......

 

[Irishgoldhound]

John is right. I've used the At pro for a while now and it takes some time to learn. The Pro will sound off good on deeper iron until you remove some earth away to allow your machine to identify better. This isn't so much the case in pro mode as John says, you can hear the iron grunt she makes when over an iron target.

 

[fireguy]

Are you in pro mode with iron audio.
Wouldn't change Id # but might help you. No experience with the at but that's a big part of the upgrade from the, 250.

 

[gleaner1]

cott, try iron audio off, pro mode zero mode, iron scrim set at 35, sense set at 3. Avoid std mode it sucks. Pro mode gives multi tone, low tone is iron, bottle caps sound sorta good but with crappy iron sqwauks, you will get used to these after you dig a few. Mid tone is pull tab, foil, can slaw, brass, lead, nickels, gold, etc. High tone is copper and silver and clad. zincolns are mid tone if rotten, but might hit high if shiny and shallow. Just concentrate on the tones, the tone volume, and the size of the target. Big can sized crap will sound good but you can tell its big so just either dig it or move on. Detune the pp to get a good idea of depth and size. Test targets on clean turf holding the coil a good five inches above while sweeping. If testing pp on surface targets, keep the coil about four or five inches away to simulate real field finds. One good season and you will feel like a pro.

 

[cott1300]

cott, try iron audio off, pro mode zero mode, iron scrim set at 35, sense set at 3. Avoid std mode it sucks. Pro mode gives multi tone, low tone is iron, bottle caps sound sorta good but with crappy iron sqwauks, you will get used to these after you dig a few. Mid tone is pull tab, foil, can slaw, brass, lead, nickels, gold, etc. High tone is copper and silver and clad. zincolns are mid tone if rotten, but might hit high if shiny and shallow. Just concentrate on the tones, the tone volume, and the size of the target. Big can sized crap will sound good but you can tell its big so just either dig it or move on. Detune the pp to get a good idea of depth and size. Test targets on clean turf holding the coil a good five inches above while sweeping. If testing pp on surface targets, keep the coil about four or five inches away to simulate real field finds. One good season and you will feel like a pro.

thank you for the tip's, I will try this asap. also a question about the iron scrim, with iron scrim lets say I put in 32, anything up to that point is discriminated for the most part right? now if I switch on iron audio anything from 32 down is the low audio grunt correct? and anything above 32 is my mid-tone until high tone value's are achieved

 

[cott1300]

Are you in pro mode with iron audio.
Wouldn't change Id # but might help you. No experience with the at but that's a big part of the upgrade from the, 250.

yep I only use pro on the AT, I started with an ace 250 to learn the ropes & feel like standard on the AT is similar to my ace, I'm still working on how to work the iron audio & what exactly it does, I go back & fourth between using it and not using it.

 

[Metal Detecting Stuff]

thank you for the tip's, I will try this asap. also a question about the iron scrim, with iron scrim lets say I put in 32, anything up to that point is discriminated for the most part right? now if I switch on iron audio anything from 32 down is the low audio grunt correct? and anything above 32 is my mid-tone until high tone value's are achieved

Yes, you are correct. And as others have said, the pro mode eliminates a lot of the iron/ high tone sounds on bolts and big nails.

Wayne

 

[Dig-N-VA]

Now this is good to know

There is a Ton of Great information here from some Awesome people

I'll be getting that AT Pro in a few months, after i get used to this ACE 250

 

[HenryWaltonJonesJr]

I think one of the biggest things for me to understand is that if you disc iron you may not hear it, but the detector still senses it and other tones can change as a result. It's not really ignoring the iron, it's just not telling you about it.

Also I believe it's really looking at the shape of items as well, deep iron with a round shape may trick it into thinking its a coin. This happens to me a lot with some old bottle caps that don't have side ridges and it'll ring high and clear.

 

[tannerhatley]

I have an AT Pro coming in the mail, good to see what I have to look forward to.

 

[cott1300]

I have an AT Pro coming in the mail, good to see what I have to look forward to.

ya it definitely has a learning curve, i'm coming from/still own a ace 250 & it didn't prepare me for the iron discrim/iron audio feature's the AT has, it's getting better though. I've read the manual & watched the vid's on garrets web-site but its funny how i'll get in the field and think now what do I do again

 

[Irishgoldhound]

Iron audio is great for bottle caps on the AT. Other detectors sound great over bottle caps but the AT can tell you if you have a bottle cap by using the iron audio. I can tell every time I have a cap. I hunt without the iron audio on and once I have a good sounding target, I turn on the iron audio and I can here the grunt now of the bottle cap. Caps are usually 76-78, so with the VDI reading and the quick press of the iron audio you can get really good at knowing bottle caps. I still dig em because I like clearing the junk and its always cool to find old bottle caps and see what kind you got this time.

 

[gleaner1]

I think one of the biggest things for me to understand is that if you disc iron you may not hear it, but the detector still senses it and other tones can change as a result. It's not really ignoring the iron, it's just not telling you about it. Also I believe it's really looking at the shape of items as well, deep iron with a round shape may trick it into thinking its a coin. This happens to me a lot with some old bottle caps that don't have side ridges and it'll ring high and clear.

All targets under the coil will affect the tecter period. No matter what the tecter is, no matter what the target is. Typically the targets scrimmed out will not be heard, but they are still there, affecting the tecter. If you really need to know exactly what is in the ground with a pro set IA off, pro mode, zero mode, iron scrim set a zero, sensible sense setting, work the coil slow but atpro is fast so when I say slow, its still kinda fast. This way you will "see" everything in the ground. The 11 dd is like a knife I can tell three bottle caps set in a triangle six inches apart. I can tell a 4 inch wheat next to a 4 inch deep rusty crown, 4" away no prob. Try it in air tests but keep the coil 5" above the test targets. Sense at 2 or 3.

 

[gleaner1]

thank you for the tip's, I will try this asap. also a question about the iron scrim, with iron scrim lets say I put in 32, anything up to that point is discriminated for the most part right? now if I switch on iron audio anything from 32 down is the low audio grunt correct? and anything above 32 is my mid-tone until high tone value's are achieved

Yes IA OFF, all signals below the iron number will not sound off it will be silent. Bottle caps break this rule often. But for the most part if you are running iron scrim at 35 and IA OFF, it will be awful quiet. With IA on, all iron will be allowed, and anything below the iron number will have the enhanced low iron grunts on the target before and after the sweep over dead center. With IA on, everything in the high pitch range behaves normally. With IA on, everything above the iron scrim setting will report mid tone or high tone as normal. But not really. Normally mid tones start at 40, but with iron scrim set at say 10, with IA ON, anything from 11 up to high pitch zone will report mid tone. We got it now.....

 

[cott1300]

Yes IA OFF, all signals below the iron number will not sound off it will be silent. Bottle caps break this rule often. But for the most part if you are running iron scrim at 35 and IA OFF, it will be awful quiet. With IA on, all iron will be allowed, and anything below the iron number will have the enhanced low iron grunts on the target before and after the sweep over dead center. With IA on, everything in the high pitch range behaves normally. With IA on, everything above the iron scrim setting will report mid tone or high tone as normal. But not really. Normally mid tones start at 40, but with iron scrim set at say 10, with IA ON, anything from 11 up to high pitch zone will report mid tone. We got it now.....

ya it's coming clearer, it's still confusing to be honest though, the whole iron scrim & iron audio, which to use which not to use, how much scrim to dial in. i even think garretts 4-part teaching video's are confusing. because they show you about dialing in a scrim setting but you may miss certain targets but if you use this etc etc setting you can do this. I'm going to stick with it & learn the machine though, i believe there video, garrett says a 100hrs of operation to fully get the functions & feature's of the AT pro down

 

[Irishgoldhound]

Iron set at 35, Pro Zero=$$$$

 

[creade]

wait to you hit a horseshoe,I didn't know what the it was.