Hey guys! Brand new to this site..I have a few questions..I got the AT Pro about 4 months ago and really like it. I have gotten permission to hunt several Civil War sites here in Mississippi recently and have done rather well (Minie balls, buck and ball, artillery frags)..No major finds yet, but it is a thrill just to walk that ground..I want to make sure I am getting the max depth and technology out of my machine and I have the best settings for the soil I am in. I use the 8.5x11 DD coil. When I auto ground balance the # is usually b/t 80-84. Everything I have found so far is no deeper than 5-6 inches except the artillery frags which of course are larger. I have been hunting in Pro custom, discrim set at about 25 and full sensitivity. Questions..1) Should I manual ground balance and back the # down a few to 70-75? 2) should I go to zero mode and have no discrimination or very little discrim? 3) Should I back the sensitivity down a notch or two? Some of the areas are trashy and some are not...Would appreciate any advice I can get as I have a big 2 day hunt coing up this weekend..Thanks guys!
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AT Pro questions....
- Thread starter Eagledigs
- Start date
Caretaker me
Member
I set mine at custom ,full sens, 31, gb, then down 10, but if you are relic hunting, I would drop it down to 20 to hear more iron and add 5 to 10 on the gb
BigCatDaddy
New member
If it were me, I'd be in Pro mode, zero disc, Sens. about 6 bars, no more. Running full Sens. just makes the machine unstable for general scanning. If you get over a faint signal that you think might be good, you can crank it up then. Remember, Sens. makes the detector more sensitive to the bad as well as the good. You can tinker with the GB, but I would Auto GB it and let it be. Listen for those faint whispers on the tones, that's the deep ones. Your headphones will alert you if there's something deep there, but you gotta go slow and listen.
Looks like you are primarily relic hunting, but if you decide to focus on some silver, turn the iron audio off in trashy areas then toggle it back on when you hear something juicy. Having the iron grunts on all the time in trashy areas can make descerning the higher tones difficult.
Eric in RI
New member
I personally use Pro mode, zero discrimination, I ground balance around 89 - 92 in my soil. I actually leave the GB# as it is. I swing slowly, overlapping each swing by 50%. The key for me is going slow, especially in a trashy area with the 8 1/2 x 11 coil. I like to listen to it all and with all the iron grunts, you stop dead in your tracks when you hear a soft mid / high tone. I also have the headphones volume turned up to max. My sensitivity is one bar before maxed out. I only set it to max when I have a faint target that I want to double check that doesn't register a vdi # on the screen, so I see if it will help me determine whether to dig or not. I hunt parks and dont really want to dig 10"+ signals all over the ball field. Just my 2 cents. Good luck and HH! 
* 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.
* 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 10-20 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 link for a complete view :
* 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 IN 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 10-20 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 link for a complete view :
Eric in RI
New member
n/t