A Good Unmasker?

So there is a way to ground balance them properly besides how the manual states?

Hey Tim...

The ground bal offest is nothing new its just a way to get more usable depth ...Especially in bad dirt...

in bad dirt the ground can look like a target to a detectorso deeper smaller weaker items can get lost in the correct ground bal setting....

So the setting of the ground bal a little negative til the ground starts to become noisy will at times allow you to hear the weaker or smaller or deeper targets that might go unoticed....

Right away I found the AT's can handle more offset than alot of the other's out there and still run smooth enough to actually add a performance gain...

now it can aslo help on a manual ground bal machine in more neutral dirts and such to tune to your object.....higcondcutors or low conductors can be enhanced if the gorund can allow it...

Keith

Deathray -- Agreed 100% on the coil connector and headphone connector!! It makes swapping coils a hassle. You really have to be holding your mouth right to get it in there. Sometimes I just have to walk away from it for a few minutes and then come back to try again later.

Keith.... Would you mind elaborating a little more on the procedure of G/B to high/low conductors please.

Hey Keith, How much of an offset are you typically able to get with the AT with it still runnig fairly stable?

So basically you manually ground balance the machine negative to get better depth?

Hi, The questions you guys are asking is basically covered in the Garrett AT manual....Sometimes it helps and sometimes it hurts your detectability to shift your ground balance to a positive or negative phase.........When applying this technique I have seen it change a high tone target to a mid tone target or visa versa.....Don't forget when shifting the GB to much either way that your pin point feature will probably not work correctly plus your VDI may be off slightly....I have had the best results just doing a proper ground balance.....JJ

With my ATP with the 8.5x11" coil --- I dug a SBA dollar in wet sand (here in Michigan so it's fresh water environment) at approx. 15" deep - it ID'd on the ATP as a quarter.


I noticed that detectors always get better depth in sand compared to dirt. I don't know if it is the lack of minerals in the sand or what, but with my Sovereign I get crazy deep sometimes.

Geez guys, I'm more confused now then when I asked the original question, lol. Just kidding of course. UPDATE...

Decided to pull the trigger on the AT Gold! Picked it up from Rich at Backwoods Detectors...great fella - super deals

Thank you everyone for chiming in! I might have a lot of questions after I get the new unit, so, be prepared, lol.

Joe

Goodmore, you are right about that lake Michigan beach sand. When I was in Wi, I used to get clad dimes 18"+ deep in the damp sand with my sovereign xs, w/8" coinsearch coil.
take that same machine into a park, and 8-9" dimes were max.

Not always better depth tim...ground and mineral dictate what you can do..its jutst an option to have at times and in the right spots with the understanding that it will act differently..

On the AT you can sometimes get better depth on high conductots with a lower ground bal and better depth on low conductors with a high ground bal..

If you have a manual ground bal machine play with it in some test and see which settings are hotter on which conductors in your dirt..dd coils help you get away with more skew also..

Dont be surprised if when messing around with your ground bal if you loose high confuctors like big silver...

Keith

What they said :-)

Kind of like a tang sight on a rifle. You can keep it down low for 50-100 yards, and raise it up for 500-600 yards. You wouldn't raise the tang sight to shoot at a rabbit in your back yard (unless you lived in Texas). It's just a tool to use when the conditions are right and/or needed.

When you're out detecting and not in a hurry, experiment with good targets you've detected before digging them up and see if any of your information on the faceplate of the detector is different... depth meter off, lose or gain depth, numbers off etc. Pay attention to very weak/faint targets and see if a different GB makes it more detectable.

I can get about another inch on gold rings "air tested" if I raise the GB 10-20 points and same with coins if I lower GB, but I haven't tried it in the field as I suggested, and don't really know what the negatives are yet, but the above hints are what I will be checking out soon. Right now I'm in a fairly unsearched school field so am only cherry picking the top 2 or 3 inches to keep from damaging the field. I found that with a little practice you can pinpoint dead nuts on good targets, and many times I will just lay the grass back a little and dig in the dirt proper without cutting a grass plug. Once winter sets in, I can maybe not be so worried about harming the grass there but still just dig the sidelines only. I won't cut plugs in a field where kids are running, too much chance of a plug lifting and causing an injury.