Help Me Help a Friend With His Max

[flysar]

Coin signals are not clean and my call to Garrett today didn't clarify why.

My friend jumped from an ACE to the MAX last month and he told me how coin signals are "scratchy" in the dirt and air testing and he can't get a feel for what a coin should sound like. I finally had an opportunity to visit him yesterday and it doesn't compute with me either. Ive owned both the ATP & ATG so I have a basic understanding of the platform; they were chatty in our soil using Pro mode so I moved on to other units.

1. Created a clean patch of ground in his front yard, dug a quarter in the process, using All Metal.
2. Sensitivity 2 bars below max
3. Ground Balanced using the button: 92
4. Swept the area in Coins and Zero modes - no tones
5. Dropped the clad quarter we found on top of the soil and the signal was a clean tone for the most part with the center of the coil over the target. At the edge of the coil using a normal sweep or wiggling the tip on/off the coin there was a secondary tone, almost an iron grunt (iron audio off), mixed in making it real scratchy.
6. Placed a 1880's Morgan Dollar in the same spot and got the same results.
7. Rarely, using Coins or Zero modes, did we get a good clean high tone.

The Garrett rep I talked with today said that sounds normal but didn't expound on why. How confusing it is for a user to have to deal with that secondary tone when coin shooting especially when it's free of all targets. My friend said he'd get those same scratchy tones in air tests too. Garrett rep said to send it in and they would check it but if that's normal why spend the extra money and down time. I told him to make a video and send it to them.

I'm sure he'd be grateful for any insight I can pass along. Thank you.

 

[MikeLab]

Surface targets at the high sensitivity can overpower things. Don't be greedy with the sensitivity, set it maybe half way when learning. That will go plenty deep.

 

[Chuck Yoder]

I have a question about the AT Max. What is the Audio Thresholds for. All it does that I can tell is make an unwanted noise that interferes with targets. I talked with a guy from Garrett today and what he told me made no sense at all. He talked like the threshold noise would rise and fall as you passed over a target giving you better target info. Sounded like it made sense so I tied it and the hum stayed constant.. It seems to me to be a useless feature. Can anyone clear this up for me ?

 

[John-Edmonton]

Audio threshold only works in the true all metal mode. It's handy for searching for the tiniest of nuggets, or very deep signals. To use the threshold in all metal mode, adjust the threshold until you can barely hear a mum or background noise. Now, when searching for a tiny target, you listen to that hum for a change in audio. Either a small beep or it goes silent. That alerts you to a possible small target under the coil.

You can also go into the negative numbers to help stabilize an area where there is a lot of EMI or other types of static.

http://www.findmall.com/read.php?79,2412020,2412020#msg-2412020

 

[John-Edmonton]

You might try an area away from your dwelling, as cable above or underground will cause you some audio distortions. Try a different operating frequency. Sometimes that clears up the rough audio. Switch the headsets around. That could help too. And turn down your sensitivity a little more. It is not a depth control. Having the threshold set too high in some areas will actually cancel out some targets.

 

[calabash digger]

. The audio on the max is lacking imo and the at pros audio is much better. The maxs is choppy and poppy and I don't care for it not a good coin shooting audio imo. but what do I know I'm not a coin shooter.. Have you tried running the machine over iron and listening to it? Depth is good but they missed the boat on the audio.. try it in iron...

 

[Tony-Ok]

I am a coin shooter and I must agree ,!!! The audio is not a smooth clean response!! If Garrett can fix it , I would send it back

 

[papaholly]

Coming from the pro to the max, I hate the tones