Welcome to the forum from middle Georgia. Before you spend the money, read as many of these "new to the sport" threads as you can to get as many perspectives as you need to get your first detector. On that limited budget you may want to see which machines you seem to focus on in the 400-500 dollar range. Then look here in the Tnet classifieds, or if nothing is there go to Craigslist and look. You may find there are good deals in both places and you can get a better machine than you thought you could afford. I was surprised to find a 6 month old MXT Pro for less than half of the new price. I wish I had kept and learned the machine. THAT is the other big lesson here! It has been said here, and most detectorists here will amplify that it takes anywhere from 40 - 100 hours or more to really learn your machine. YES, you can turn them on and have some immediate success, but to really KNOW the machine take your time. I'm getting back into the sport and still haven't fully set myself on a machine, although now that the bike sold I can get what I want. Take a week or so to pour through these threads and you'll be glad you did! On the GPAA question, I already had coffee with a nearby site member that has a GPAA membership and he feels it is definitely worth the price of admission...Hope all this helped and once again, welcome!!
