One thing I have noticed on the AT-PRO...And it took me awhile to accustom myself to it is the Sweep speed can be moved at a real slow pace through the iron and retain excellent depth with the combined blending audio it really does give an extra edge to unmasking.....

I know on a few other fast response unmaking machine's need a little bit of a quicker sweep speed to get the same depth in the iron and hence some masking will occur with a faster sweep...

The Slow sweep with depth combined with the Excellent audio ( Blending ability) ,,,Makes it a first grab machine for me in hunting for masked target's...I myself see no need for any other machine in iron infested site's combined with bad dirt...

I can here a 10.5 inch dime in bad dirt with a high tone.. for people worried about how it does in bad ground....

Funny you mention the Freq....I know it is on 15khz... but it handles soil like a lower freq machine for me ....But it dig's the small stuff like the 15khz...It will find stuff deep on isolated target's at over a foot but again it takes a slow sweep....

I real eye opener for me was after I really got in tune with the audio was it's ability to see such small stuff co-located in nails...

It also has the ability to hear real deep iron....I know On my GB SE it hear's iron but not deep....soem spot's I would have trouble with locating habitat site's because once you have to punch 6 inches of pinestraw then hear deep nail's the GBSE struggled with them...The AT-PRO will way deep nail's and properly I.D. them with the low grunt...Perfect for campsite hunting..

I am really impressed with it for my style of hunting...Which is relic's...

Good info Tom.....

Keith

I cant stress this enough when working dense iron....it is a real eye-opener..if you have mineralized dirt and some real iron hole's combined give this technolgy a chance...Do not dismiss it thinking the price is too low to perform or the name is not reputable for high technology....

I believe Garrett spent a lot of time on the unmasking technology...

Keith

Keith it's comments like this that really make me want to try one

> The Slow sweep with depth combined with the
> Excellent audio ( Blending ability) ,,,Makes it a
> first grab machine for me in hunting for masked
> target's...I myself see no need for any other
> machine in iron infested site's combined with bad
> dirt...

One question for you, what's your definition of an iron infested site?

HH,
Brian

PS - sorry I thought of a second question How do you think this would do as a fresh water hunter for wading in lakes, and rivers and such for jewelry?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/16/2011 12:21AM by Cal_cobra.

LCPM......no, you will not find it going deeper in mineralized soil.....as compared to low/no mineralization soil.

As far as small targets; this particular unit does not appear to be very sensitive to small low conductors. It is not bad; yet, I'm spoiled with the F75 in concert with 'boost process' (bp) mode. The best I could detect a U.S. $1.00 Type 1 gold coin in an air-test with the AT Pro.....is nearly 8".......with maximum settings. The F75 LTD would pique at 17" in an air-test. That's a world of difference.

is a site where the iron grunt never goes quite...Just a constant barrage sounding like it one continuous tone....

As far as the wading ???? Not sure on jewelry ...It ought to work nice being waterproof...no worries of dropping it but I know what you are after ...Gold!!!!.It should do well ....

I tested mine with a small thin gold chain no clasp just chain and I heard it at 4 inches....I have another machine I tested it on and I had to scrub it on the coil to hear on that one so I think it should be quite capable of jewelry hunting..although I have never done such...

You'll never know unless you try....

Keith

I have been following the evolution of the AT Pro from the time of its first release. I am on my third AT Pro.. Number 1 was one of the first released and I was disappointed with the falsing issue but then the pinpoint button stopped working and I called Garrett and the sent it back. When I complained about the falsing I was told that it was "normal". What I got back was a new machine which seem to be operating somewhat better than the first. It has been a hard winter in upstate NY and I was waiting not so patiently for spring. Around the 1st of March I decided to give the machine a good check to see if it had was as good as the "fixed" units that I had read about on the this forum. The coil would not false when detached, but the unit still falsed when hitting stiff brush or shaken hard. If I tapped the control box it would false. This time when I called Garrett they were almost eager for me to return it. Today I received the the detector by UPS. The weather has broke now and my yard is snow free and thawed. Of course I tried it out while I had a little daylight. It is rock solid. No falsing , the recovery speed seems improved and the pinpointing is much better (although not as good as my LTD). My yard is full of decaying iron. I was able to dial the iron discrimination on the fly in pro mode. I recovered a few non valuable non ferrous targets as well a partially rusted silver plated knife that was horizontal about 4" deep. I would not have dug the knife with any of my other machines. I thought I made a mistake but I now see a lot of potential for the AT Pro. I hope Garrett realizes that we don't expect perfection with a new model but we would appreciate a willingness to deal with problems as they are discovered. It helps everyone involved

Dalpal.

I'm beside mysefl reading these posts ....On one hand you have Tom in neutral soil doing some testing getting great depths and ID's , and you have Keith and others that love the machine because of the way it handles iron which it does EXTREMELY well for a machine in this price range , but I'm in a park that is LOADED with Bottle caps !!....... I PRAY for Iron !!.....I 'm no my knees BEGGING for nails !!.....LOL !!.......These bottle caps are a TOTAL nuisance and they are in the park where I find all my deep Silver !!..... I would be discriminating too many GOOD targets if I discriminate the bottle caps ......Enter E Trac .... It's very strange too how Lawrenzo descrives his findings with the AT Pro ....It doesn't sound positive at all as compared to the G2 ....??????..... From everything that I have read about the G2, the AT Pro sounded like a better machine to me ......I'll have to try out some new area's and see how things work out .....So far the only place where I can run the AT Pro the way I want to run it is on the dry sand on the beach !!.......The wet salt on some beaches will NOT cooperate, the park is a definite no go , so I'll have to find a place for this machine other than just the dry sand ......Jim

testing in varied geographic areas. We need lots more of this type of thing.

Terra ,
You got that right !!...... Soil and Sand conditions vary so much from place to place that it's hard to get a reading on how the AT Pro would pertain to you in your area ..... I guess you just sorta read between the lines ....I know from Toms area , I can relate because my dry sand beach is pretty clean .....I'm already in tune with how well the AT Pro discriminates Iron .... So I have no problem there .....I guess what it boils down to is my previous thread .....I really am spoiled !!..... I'm probably not cut out for single frequency machines in most cases ...... There are a few places where the single frequency machine really does well for me , but for the most part , I'm better off with a multi frequency machine .... The Minelab matrix is a hard discriminator to beat !!.....With a wider range on the E Tracs matrix , you can be extremely accurate as to what you want to disciriminate and what you don't .....This is GOLDEN !!..... I should say thtat this is GOLDEN for ME !!......Some guys have to have that racket going oin in their ears .....They can block it out , where I have a problem doing so .... JIm

PS ....My dad ( may he rest in peace ) and I would be talking and my mother would start calling him from the other room ....He already knew what she wanted and did not want to be bothered when he was talking to me .....You can't tell my mother "just a minute " !!.....She wait's for NO ONE !!....LOL !!!......I would look at my father and ask him how he puts up with her calling him all the time ......He put his hand by his head and twisted his wrist like he was shutting off a switch !!.....He said " Just like that is how " ......." I turn the switch off, and I don't hear a thing" ....... I think this is similar to the way guys with single frequency machines hunt !!......Jim

It would be fun to try the AT at an old 1860's resort area in the mountains. Most of the buildings burned down in the 1920's and the ground is a sea of nails, on the surface and in the ground. Clear the surface, and dig a hole and there's six more nails in the hole. The good news is that these nails are in almost perfect condition despite being old cut square well over 100 years old (if someone collects square nails most of these looks like the day they were made!). This area is so infested with iron I'm sure there's plenty of old silver left there, but it's highly masked. I tried hunting it with the F75 LTD and I caved in after 15 minutes or so in the pit of square nails. Is it possible to hunt these nail infested areas with something like the AT, or is it going to be the same as using the F75 LTD?

Different detectors for different people and their hunting habits, it's one reason why you will read about one persons
love of a particular detector while others say they absolutely hated it, there is no singular detector that will please
everyone. It's why most of us try different detectors in that quest for the one detector that works for each one of us
as an individual and what works or is best for you may not be the ideal detector for someone else and one reason
why you see so many arguments about detector A vs detector B. We are all individuals and on that quest for the
detector we as individuals can bond with and become an extension or part of you. Good luck in finding this right one
for it's like a marriage and if you do find it hang on to it as long as you can because some never find that perfect fit.

Tom does this mean that one wouldn't have to dig a lot of the tiny junk that I come home with using the F75 LTD? I know for relic hunting it's different, you want to dig all that history, but when hunting 1800's parks, I don't care about digging droplets of lead, or rolled beaver tails that ring in as silver dimes at 9" deep. If the AT ignores these erroneous targets (erroneous to me at least , then that could be a positive attribute depending on the hunting scenario at hand.

NASA-Tom Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
...
> As far as small targets; this particular unit does
> not appear to be very sensitive to small low
> conductors. It is not bad; yet, I'm spoiled with
> the F75 in concert with 'boost process' (bp) mode.
> The best I could detect a U.S. $1.00 Type 1 gold
> coin in an air-test with the AT Pro.....is nearly
> 8".......with maximum settings. The F75 LTD would
> pique at 17" in an air-test. That's a world of
> difference.

Performed two more tests......and will report the first one. Time permitting..........I'll report the second (beach) test.

Continued hunting the old Fort relic site. AT Pro was in Pro Zero with Disc on '31' and Sens on max. Intentionally dug targets in the high iron ID range. Railroad spikes ID'd as '34'.......and horseshoes (from 1849 - 1852) ID'd as '36 -37'. Quite interesting.....because all other iron targets (usually nails) ID'd quite a bit lower. Aside from the VDI numbers being higher........the tone-break made the detection of these iron items....VERY easy to find.......as.......anything that ID'd above '31'....gave a mid-tone. Was looking for swords, gun barrels etc..............
Interesting relic test.

It gives alot of info on iron target's...once learned I have gotten accustomed to being able to tell horseshoe's from flat iron and such just by the response....remind's me a lot of a all metal mode with it's shaping and sizing with the added benefit of unique disc response intermingled...

here's such an Item the AT netted me... it's an early Stirrup 1840's....Out of confederate cavalry spot...


By civilwarrelics at 2011-03-16


Keith

Keith you have a real gift for the kind of hunting you do...I wish I had the talent you have. I am real happy to read your posts and see your videos and photos. I am really glad the At fits you style..you should be a tester for the company a lot of what you say makes sense and I am glad to see Tom and you are on the same page. I took the At out again today and boy was my arm tired again. I went to a clean area today that had some square nails and really slowed down to see if I could find any good targets..but again my ears failed me. The LTD is chatty on a disc of 6 or less but I could understand that and used the LTD from day one and enjoyed it. But the G2 in my ground did a better job. I am thinking the AT will have a flagship unit coming out soon? And they may take it to the next level but I sure enjoyed testing it and seeing what a great job they did making a new level in iron hunting....it was just not the machine for me and I didn't have a lot of time to really test it. The LTD and the T2 and the G2 on the first day I knew I liked the machines and Tom helped a lot with all the testing he did. I would try all the stuff he wrote about and the machine even got better...I wonder if the At is good enough where Tom will buy one and add it to his LTD or wanted to test it like me, though he has a way better understanding of the machine and it is a good fit for him...Tom will you be adding the At to your LTD???

LowBoy

TAKE A LITTLE TIME KICKBACK AND WATCH SOME OF MY DETECTING VIDEO'S BELOW ON YouTube

[www.youtube.com]

If you don’t dig it, then how are you going to know what you’re missing!
How can you have your pudding if you don’t eat your meat!

I will try to consolidate this post to a 'to-the-point' lit.

AT Pro on the wet salt sand. Very little change in status from my first post (a couple of months ago) IRT the wet salt beach. Unit Grnd Bal'd at '14' in the wet salt.......and became gold-dead.........as to be expected with a single freq unit that is not specifically intended for the wet salt. There are MUCH better units for the wet salt. Case closed --- no further comment.

Dry sand. Same problems with steel bottle caps. A very certain/distinct audio signature with pre and post audio being iron audio......and the center/primary audio being a mid-tone (usually).....and sometimes a high tone. Once you learn this.....your performance/success level is substantially increased.....and you can sail past these steel bottlecaps in short order. It is not a hard-to-learn audio signature. All other non-ferrous targets would ID properly.......and nearly perfectly.......to (just shy of) fringe depths of this unit. It is not quite as deep as some other units......but ..... for it's price bracket......it is a very serious contender.

Still.............it's #1 attribute is it's iron handling abilities.....in nail infested sites.

Tom I'm glad you posted the data on the crown caps. Looks like I'll get to test one of these babies out, so I'll have to test over some caps to make sure I understand it's signature.

I'm really interested to try it at iron infested sites, I take it this could be a good machine for ghost town hunting where there's lots of iron and trash.

Cal, I do wonder about that though.
Even though Keith and Tom mention it is really good in trash.
I detect around a lot of old houses whose structure no longer stands.
There are almost always areas where nails are in quite abundance.
Even to the extent that I can't use a 5 or 6" coil and not have at least
one shallow nail, sometimes 2 or more nails under the small coil at any given time.
And I purposely mention "shallow".
Now what I have found out is it is better to use small coils on whatever
detector I am using at the time, preferably a DD coil.
So what I am saying is "ghost towns" usually mean nails strawn and
likely a lot of them shallow so that a normal size stock coil is rendered ineffective.
Now if the AT-Pro will best other detectors that are fitted with a smaller coil in that condition
then that would get my attention fast.
But my guess is that the AT-Pro needs a small coil to get serious in those shallow nail
infested areas.

The more 'human travel'.......the more trash. The OLDER the (human travel) site......the more nails. Structure no longer existing = EXTREME volume of nails.

The more 'trashy' areas (where the bulk of the human activity has taken place) ...... the higher the number of good targets; yet, the higher number of bad targets; subsequently, the more masking will take place. Detectors of today.....are JUST STARTING to combat this problem. Rapid microprocessors in concert with tight electromagnetic coil footprints is just 'coming of age'.

The AT Pro is every bit of 'iron accurate' as the T2/F75 platform. Yet, still suffers the wrath of Mother Nature; that being: the physics of electromagnetic 'masking'. If only you knew how bad (via how many) good targets were being masked. BUT..............you don't know,,,what you don't know. It is nearly impossible to: "measure the unknown"!

Not sure it's talent though ...It more of just eagerness to recover history one target at a time...Keep on investigating ....

I too enjoy your video's and like to see the Gold Mining era relics especially....

I am enjoying the At right now but always waiting on something better....Aint we all???

Curious to see the new Fisher Multi freq Machine ....Could be another game changer...

wonder if it's like 2-3 freq's or if it's like an explorer with lot's of them?

Also wonder what the new Garrett offering's are going to be..
Heard they are working on a newer Infinium also....

Not sure about Tesoro????I have a weird feeling they are nearing the end...

Thanks

Keith

Is Fisher actually releasing a multi.......or are you wishing they do?? I think most of us would be thrilled to see a Fisher multi.

A modernized CZ line would be killer!! DD coils, dual or quad core processors, more programability, the possibilities are endless. I never understood why they dropped the CZ line with the HUGH following of CZ enthusiasts

TerraDigger Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is Fisher actually releasing a multi.......or are
> you wishing they do?? I think most of us would be
> thrilled to see a Fisher multi.


i agree!..i believe it is (f.t's) next logical leap on the technological scale!
just sayin!..somethin' to compete with the e-trac!

(h.h.!)
j.t.

When hunting in iron trash with the AT PRO how do you guys tell the difference between the Low high low tone and just a good target that is beside or under a nail or something. I have been fooled a few times with thinking I had a good target in Iron when in fact it was just the low high low tone. Do good target's give a steady tone even if a nail is near it ?

Just pulled this out of a pounded park with the AT Pro, it was a good 9" deep, not measured but half way up the handle on my model 85 Predator tools digger. I was using Pro mode Custom
iron disc at 31, ground balanced at 81 and I manually ran it down to 75. I switched to standard mode custom with iron disc at 31 and got a solid repeatable bell tone was just checking the difference
between pro and standard modes, it had a tid of 78-81. I'm impressed and shocked as so far only my E-Trac has found silver that deep in this particular park before. I know you have to get your
coil over the target but it really is a feat as this park has been declared as hunted out by several detectorists and through the summer almost on a daily basis it gets hit by people detecting, our
club holds some of our group hunts there. I'm very impressed in the AT Pro.

I would also like to thank Tom and Keith for all their info and testing on the AT Pro, I found the Ground Balance info very helpful and informative
and put it to good use and attribute it to aide the find above as I lowered my initial Ground balance of 81 to 75 and the coin rang out as though
it was only 3-4 inches deep even though reality wise it was at least 9 inches. It wasn't measured but was 3/4 the way up the handle on my
Predator tools model 85 digger.

Yes the AT is a very deep machine that actually will surprise you....I have found that to get the real deepies I have to run it slow even in trash free area's...Not too slow but slower than the some of the competitor's...

The AT has a Unique audio on the deepies has sort of a loping sound ...reminds me of a explorer in the way it report's deep targets' with just barely having to move the coil...

(((((((((((I dug some 3 ringer .58 caliber minnie ball's yesterday in a spot that were just plain deeeeep!!! I swung over them many time's in this one area with other machine's and the AT rescued them...it was in a house site but the iron was semi dense not rapid fire but maybe i or 2 nails under the coil on a sweep...but it picked the minnie's out with an eerie ease...they were over 1o inches deep...What really ticked me off was the X-5 walked all over them!!!!...))))))))))

It also gets exceptional depth in iron area's with the slow sweep retaining depth you could creep though a spot and pick out the high tone's...

Here's something I like to do Coyote when I dig an older coin..........Go to this website and scroll down to your date and click on it then look at all that happened that year in history. really put's the coin//Artifact in perspective......I think you might like your 1874 January 31st incident....You might have part if the loot!!!!

[www.brainyhistory.com]


Keith

Keith Southern Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yes the AT is a very deep machine that actually
> will surprise you....I have found that to get the
> real deepies I have to run it slow even in trash
> free area's...Not too slow but slower than the
> some of the competitor's...
>
> The AT has a Unique audio on the deepies has sort
> of a loping sound ...reminds me of a explorer in
> the way it report's deep targets' with just barely
> having to move the coil...
>
> (((((((((((I dug some 3 ringer .58 caliber minnie
> ball's yesterday in a spot that were just plain
> deeeeep!!! I swung over them many time's in this
> one area with other machine's and the AT rescued
> them...it was in a house site but the iron was
> semi dense not rapid fire but maybe i or 2 nails
> under the coil on a sweep...but it picked the
> minnie's out with an eerie ease...they were over
> 1o inches deep...What really ticked me off was the
> X-5 walked all over them!!!!...))))))))))
>
> It also gets exceptional depth in iron area's with
> the slow sweep retaining depth you could creep
> though a spot and pick out the high tone's...
>
> Here's something I like to do Coyote when I dig an
> older coin..........Go to this website and scroll
> down to your date and click on it then look at all
> that happened that year in history. really put's
> the coin//Artifact in perspective......I think you
> might like your 1874 January 31st incident....You
> might have part if the loot!!!!
>
> [www.brainyhistory.com]
>
>
> Keith


Thanks for the link Keith, I bookmarked it and it is very interesting, you are right it does kinda put
things into perspective. I really appreciate you and Tom's info and tests on the AT Pro, I sure learned
A lot from reading them and put the info I learned to good use.

I know it's hard when hunting iron to distinguish iron false from co-located target's.....As a general rule though if you are hunting a barrage of iron grunt non stop roll the the iron will be like a constant background same level tone as it run's through the site then if you get a blip of a high tone in there work the signal for a minute and see if it sounds like a legitimate non-ferrous target...good tight hit sort of easy to distinguish mid or upper tone sort of same level audio like the iron grunt's.....if you get a hard iron growl louder than surrounding iron grunt then a high tone interlaced it is usually going to be a large piece of iron falsing..........A large mid or high tone in a constant nail grunt is something non-ferrous close to the surface like a coin or such or a larger item of non-ferrous nature at depth...

it's hard to explain and I still get fooled daily but listen to all the iron that's in the ground and you are only having to dig a percentage of it with the added audio info available to you...

you can also turn the iron audio off and just listen for smoother beep's while be oblivious to the iron.....maybe that would work better till you get a better hang of it?

the Pro mode is just that a mode designed with the understanding of iron behavior and how to deal with it but at the same time giving you complete ability to know everything going on under the coil and any given time...so the iron audio turned on is the ultimate tool for my style of hunting for artifact's..but you can turn the iron audio of and still hear co-located target's very very well.While still utilizing the excellent audio of pro mode.....


It's going to take some time....but that's half the fun....


I am finding the AT-Pro to be an awesome total site Artifact recovery tool....( For My purposes)

Keith

Coyote65 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Just pulled this out of a pounded park with the AT
> Pro, it was a good 9" deep, not measured but half
> way up the handle on my model 85 Predator tools
> digger. I was using Pro mode Custom
> iron disc at 31, ground balanced at 81 and I
> manually ran it down to 75. I switched to standard
> mode custom with iron disc at 31 and got a solid
> repeatable bell tone was just checking the
> difference
> between pro and standard modes, it had a tid of
> 78-81. I'm impressed and shocked as so far only my
> E-Trac has found silver that deep in this
> particular park before. I know you have to get
> your
> coil over the target but it really is a feat as
> this park has been declared as hunted out by
> several detectorists and through the summer almost
> on a daily basis it gets hit by people detecting,
> our
> club holds some of our group hunts there. I'm very
> impressed in the AT Pro.
>
> [i11.photobucket.com]
> 74SeatedLibertyDimeFront.jpg
> [i11.photobucket.com]
> 74SeatedLibertyDimeBack.jpg


That right there is what I'm after! Excellent find!

I am more and more impressed with this unit. If it hits well on deep silver dimes/half dimes and does as well in iron as you guys are reporting (and I have no reason to believe it wont as long as I put the time in to figure out what it's telling me and you guys are making that easier with your reports) I think this may well fill the void I have with my LTD which fails on dime/half dimes after ~ 6" of depth in my dirt.