Well I hunted a little bit of everyplace. I hunted mostly parks, some old and some new. I didn't find much in tot lots nor in parks with old swings sets. I found more in open areas of the parks. One park established in 1918 I found one wheat penny and in a new park less than 10 yrs old I found a gold ring and over $6 in clad. What's surprising this week I found over $10 at a soccer field. I had never found more than maybe $3 at the most at soccer fields in the past so for the most part I over look them. It may have been because I am that much better with my ATP. Since I started to manually ground balance my ATP I have found a lot more and with really strong signals.
I hunt several public places that I don't admit because the competition in detecting is getting pretty intense. Everyone wants to know where you go and if you tell someone sure as heck you will see someone hunting the same place soon. I know a cpl of guys that been detecting for years and unless you hit the same park as them at the same time they will never tell you where they go or even suggest a place. Especially in the past 6 months I have probably run into no less than 5 guys new to detecting and they like me when I 1st started always hit the local parks that been hunted well. One thing about a popular park is they constantly regenerate.
I been actively hunting for about 2 yrs and before that maybe 10 yrs with my old Radio Shack detector but only maybe a cpl times a year with that one.
I been wanting a new detector more for the challenge of learning a new one with more bells and whistles. But I do so well with my ATP it's hard to even consider anything else. I was down to the point of clicking the order button on one last weekend but held off because I wanted to do more research. I am pretty convinced on what i want but other than the ability of finding anything over 6" I don't see where anyone has found more than me per hunt. I had a $13, $9 and several $7 days this month of course I had one day of 30 cents and another of $1. Considering I hunted 14 days averaged $6+ everyday I went out.
Right now I am struggling with the idea of spending $1500+ for a new detector when this one does so well. I hunted with a guy that has a CTX3030 and yes he did better than me on signals over 6" but on anything 6" and under i did as well. We even plotted areas and both went over the same areas and marked our finds. I never found anything he didn't but the only thing he found that I didn't was a cpl coins at 8" or more. I did like the gps feature but for $2400 that would mean I would have to average $6 per day for over a year. I have paid for my ATP in about 5 months of hunting. If there was a detector out there that was 100% right on every signal we'd all have one. I am not a relic hunter and go mostly for coins and jewelry. As much as anything i go for exercise. I am 69 yrs old but love doing it as much as I can.
