How To Get Maximum Depth/Performance From Your AT Pro/AT Gold

John-Edmonton

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Garrett- Master Hunter CX,Infinium, 1350, 2500, ACE 150-water converted 250, GTA 500,1500 Scorpion, AT Pro
* With the AT Pro, learn and hunt in Pro mode. It is deeper then standard mode. With the AT Gold, the all metal mode is deeper then Disc 1 or Disc 2. * Has a place been hunted out? Go back and try again after a good rain soaking. Moist wet soil gives better sensitivity and greater depth readings for targets. * If you get a nice high audio and a VDI in the 70's or 80's, dig it. * The larger the coil the deeper it goes. However, too many targets under a large coil can mask a good target. If you get a slight good audio using the large coil, lift it up 2-3 inches and center the coil where the good audio was. Often times the good target will be much clearer. * Get a coil cover and scrub the ground. Some people scan the ground inches above it...."DON'T" You can gain a couple of inches scrubbing, which is significant. * Don't swing too fast! Just because it has a very fast "recovery speed"......doesn't mean it can always pick out that one good silver coin amongst several pieces of junk. The electronics still need to process lots of information. "SWING TOO FAST, YOU WILL COME LAST" * Swinging too fast can make you a sloppy hunter. You also risk eventually cracking/breaking your coil and elephant ears from the constant banging on trees, playground equipment or concrete. * If you are getting lots of EMI or increased mineralization which is causing erratic audio, try adjusting your discrimination first, before lowering the sensitivity. This sometimes lets the machine run smoother without losing any depth. * If you get mixture of audio signals, scan the target from different directions. Sometimes a good target is beside or partially underneath a good target. The AT Series has a unique ability to pick out those good targets amongst the trash. Going at the target from different directions allows the AT Pro to perform even better! * Ground balance your machine occasionally. Temperature can change, and directly affect the settings. Hunting in shade vs. sun can vary. "a 14 degree difference on a lawn area to a 35 degree difference on a parking lot." But, the mineralization can also change between areas....so again...ground balance periodically. * To increase the depth/sensitivity to silver targets, lower the ground balanced numbers several points * If you are hunting an area that is absolutely covered with nails, try ground balancing out a nail until it is nothing but a small amount of static. Now....all the copper & silver targets will give a loud audio response....BUT the target ID will be off. * Build a test garden...use good & bad targets at different depths. You will soon discover that deep silver targets beyond depths of 8 or more inches begin to not sound off as a high pitch or that the VDI numbers remain in the 80's. That is very good information to know. My rule of thumb states if it's deep....it's old. Dig it! It costs you nothing. * Run your battery charges at the top 1/4 fully charged, not the last 1/4 charged battery condition segment. The AT Series will run 100% until the battery runs down to a certain point. Because nobody knows exactly where that point is on their machine, don't try and find out. With the price of cheap alkalines or rechargeable "AA" batteries, you should never reach that unknown power loss point. Bring spares, or top off your recharge ables before the hunt * Read the manual and watch the videos. Garrett has posted many videos to help with problem areas such as pin-pointing, ground balancing, iron-audio, target id, target sizing. These are just a few. Go to the Garrett Web Site. testgarden2.webp
 

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Thanks for the great information. Still waiting for the snow to melt to build a test garden and to use my new ATP!
 

Awesome information John couldn't of summed it up better than you did. I don't think there is anything to add that I can think of.
 

If you have the AT Gold, learn to use the All Metal Mode. As Clive Clynick says (clivesgoldpage) learning to tell ferrous from non-ferrous with the All Metal Mode is the most important skill you can learn. All his books are loaded with good info, but there is alot on water hunting that may not be of use to some of us land-locked types. "Site-Reading for Gold and Silver" has some good stuff in it. He has a new book I haven't read yet "The Gold Jewelry Hunters Handbook".
 

Thanks for the great info! I just got my ATP and very anxious to try it out. I have been using a White's MXT for the past few years and had decided to get the ATP for water hunting but one of my hunting buddies got one and I have been very impressed with his finds. Going out to assemble the ATP right now! HH!!!!!
 

Very nice, John. Lots of wisdom shared in that single post. :thumbsup:
 

John....i was just a couple of days ago wondering about this......i have an area im detecting that u cant put the coil down without being over a nail.....My question is ,u said ground balance the nails out ....do u mean u can ground balance the detector over a nail and that will work instead of scriming them out....Thanx barrywk
 

John....i was just a couple of days ago wondering about this......i have an area im detecting that u cant put the coil down without being over a nail.....My question is ,u said ground balance the nails out ....do u mean u can ground balance the detector over a nail and that will work instead of scriming them out....Thanx barrywk

Actually, someone did exactly that, ground balanced over a rusty nail, in an area just littered with rusty nails, and had some success with toning back the iron audio signals, yet still allowing for higher tones. I am sure he lost some depth over this setup, but it is another means of attacking an area littered with nails.
 

John....i was just a couple of days ago wondering about this......i have an area im detecting that u cant put the coil down without being over a nail.....My question is ,u said ground balance the nails out ....do u mean u can ground balance the detector over a nail and that will work instead of scriming them out....Thanx barrywk

You might try adding more iron discrimination to eliminate nails. Like in the instructional videos, take a nail and sweep over it while increasing the iron discrimination until it is broken up. Iron audio should catch them. I don't know about the AT Pro but the AT Gold has what is called tone roll--several quick tones (like a drum roll) when over a nail. I know I have dug nails and scratched my head, then I decided to recheck the hole and found a coin. As for ground balancing to a nail, remember you will not get accurate ID numbers.
 

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Now that I have an AT Pro in my hands....this info is invaluable! Thanks!

If you are hunting an area that is absolutely covered with nails, try ground balancing out a nail until it is nothing but a small amount of static.
I have access to a nightmare property that nobody else likes to hunt because of the excessive trash. I'm still using the standard coil....but these kinds of tips give me hope! :)
 

Thanks John! This really helped! Looking forward to trying out these tips this weekend :)
 

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