Here is what Garrett says about the AT Pro and salt water (thanks to BobinFla who contacted them)

[SteveP(NH)]

Bob posted this in another thread without changing the title so I guess most of you missed his post so here it is again ....

This is the response I received from Garrett when I asked about using the AT Pro in salt water.

Hi Bob,



Like any VLF detector, the AT Pro is not specifically designed for saltwater operation. However, a VLF can operate reasonably well on the wet beach when adjusted accordingly.



The AT Pro will be even better than most other VLF detectors due to the AT

 

[Uncle Willy]

I believe that's what I already stated. And we haven't heard what the engineers come up with when they took it to the coast. I'll have to check with Vaughan and see what happened.

Bill

 

[SteveP(NH)]

You said or least strongly implied that the AT Pro would work great at the beach, in the thread you started that was entitled, "For those of you who don't think the AT Pro will work great at the beach" while the Garrett response says that it doesn't have any special features designed into it to make it react any differently than similarly configured VLF machines. I have used other high frequency VLF machines with big DD coils at the beach that can ground balance on salt (in fact most of them can ground balance on salt now a days) and while they can be tweaked (and have to keep being tweaked) to be somewhat stable at the beaches as the ground balance changes in very short distances as you get closer or farther away from the ocean (this is the wet sand not dry) - and even single frequency machines with ground tracking still can't do as well as the multi-frequency machines.

So while you can tweak it to kind of work at the beach it will likely not be a first choice of any knowledgeable beach hunter as there are other machines better suited to the task. If you are primarily a land hunter who makes a trip or two to the beach then it would be ok as it probably wouldn't be worth while to buy a dedicated beach machine.

However the AT Pro was designed to be an excellent inland relic hunter and I am sure it will do a great job at that. I can't wait to get my AT Pro out in the hay and corn fields once it shows up so I can see how it does but when I drive the 25 miles to the ocean beaches I will be leaving the AT Pro at home and grabbing my multi-frequency machine for the beaches.

 

[Zadok2]

I think it needs a salt switch!

 

[gmanlight]

Zodok2 a salt switch is just a discrimination switch built in.
If its bad in the salt, a salt switch is just a turn and go item.

 

[John-Edmonton]

Thanks, you are so right....any detector with discrimination can be partially tuned to get rid of salt. Having the program is just a shortcut to what you could have done.

 

[Detectorguru]

Being able to ground balance to salt water is a plus.

 

[SteveP(NH)]

Being able to ground balance to salt water is a plus.

No doubt about that, at least you can hunt in a line parallel to the ocean without the ground changing because of different amounts of salt water in it, as long as you don't run into any concentrations of black sand. More or less salt, or black sand will cause the detector to get unstable and false from either the salt or even if it stays tuned to the salt then the black sand will change the ground balance enough to cause problems. But it is much better than a fixed ground balance.

My F75 and my old T2 both can ground balance on salt. The fast grab won't lock in, but you can manually tune it to salt. I used to have a X-Terra 705 that not only could ground balance to salt but it also had ground tracking that you could turn on which helped with the changing levels of salt (using the 18.75 khz DD coil) but it still had trouble with the black sand and salt together at the same time.

Anyway the AT Pro wasn't designed for salt water work so I am not worried about how it does, if it works ok in salt water it might be ok as a backup beach machine but I think it is really going to shine at relic hunting and will be a decent coin shooter too. I hope for the coin shooters out there that Garrett comes out with a version of the AT Pro tuned for coin shooting instead of relics - kind of what First Texas did with the T2 and F75 with the T2 being the relic machine and the F75 the coin shooter but both built on the same hardware running different software. Maybe an AT Pro Coin or something like that but then again it looks like they have the At Pro pretty fired up for coins already maybe they don't think the coin hunters need the extra TID numbers while the relic hunters can put them to good use.

It will be interesting to see how Team Garrett does at the big relic hunt next year, maybe it can finally get out of last place for a change.

 

[Tony in FL]

I hope for the coin shooters out there that Garrett comes out with a version of the AT Pro tuned for coin shooting instead of relics - kind of what First Texas did with the T2 and F75 with the T2 being the relic machine and the F75 the coin shooter but both built on the same hardware running different software. Maybe an AT Pro Coin or something like that but then again it looks like they have the At Pro pretty fired up for coins already maybe they don't think the coin hunters need the extra TID numbers while the relic hunters can put them to good use.

I doubt there will be a AT Pro Coin. The current AT is being billed as a relic, coin shooter, prospecting, cache, jewelry, etc. to pretty much do it all.

 

[Uncle Willy]

According to Charlie Weaver's post he used the AT in the nasty black sand in Northern Idaho and it worked like a champ so that is a definite plus. He also said it definitely told the difference between bottlecaps, pulltabs, and coins - another big plus. I listened to a field test over the phone and it made two distinctly different sounds over junk items and coins. There was no confusing the two.

Bill