Hey F2digger congratulations on your new ATP! I have a thread going here focusing on me not being too happy with mine that I recently received and when I saw your thread I wanted to just say a couple things regarding my post.
The only issue I have with mine is that I had it pegged for a salt water hound, which it may not be but it is an awesome, powerful easy to use machine. In all aspects I am really happy with it, but my expectations as an inexperienced newbie were off a bit because I figured that it would be as simple to use in the salt water as on land. Now that I have done some harder looking into it, and had some great advice from the guys on here I am satisfied I made a good choice.
When I took it out to a couple of our beaches where I live the chatter and my lack of experience had me coming up empty handed and frustrated. Fact is I still have lots to learn on dry land and probably took it to about the worst environment possible for any detector. The beaches here are mixed with black sand that sticks to my magnets and have a very heavy mineral content. Now I am still a bit pissed I made the wrong call for where I wanted to use it but that was my fault, the ATP is great and a lot of fun to use everywhere else.
One piece of advice I got a few times here was to swap out the 8.5"x11" stock coil for the 5"x8" DD coil. I did this yesterday and I am absolutely blown away by what a different detector it has become with it on. It is so much easier to use, especially for a new guy like me. It's far more accurate with pinpointing it seems and the depth gauge is dialed in even closer too.
So the two things I would recommend as one new ATP owner to another are:
1) Ignore my "2nd guessing" thread if you come across it... it probably works fine on lots of beaches, black magnetic sand is just a ***** period.
2) Get the 5x8 and give it a go, it makes a way bigger difference than I would have thought.
Have fun F2, I'm looking forward to seeing your treasure pics soon buddy!
Cheers - Pete
