Hunting surface targets with low sensitivity setting

[MikeLab]

I know it seems counter intuitive to use low sensitivity for ANY target, but I recommend you try it. One thing I found out on the AT Gold is at the lowest sensitivity setting, a gold ring on the surface still hits very good in the DISC 1 mode even if the coil is lifted a bit. In All Metal mode, the sensitivity actually goes lower so that small targets are weaker but still audible. You might ask why you wouild ever want to hunt this way. My answer is if there is much trash or in my case some cast iron pipe underground, the lowest sensitivity will pass over much of the trash and still find a target that say was lost in the last year or two. Again, the DISC 1 mode works better for this.

 

[mudpuppy]

Yep...it really is a comfortable and excellent way to hunt anything in the top 5" or so..even gets deeper if the soil conditions are right...damp woodchip totlots etc...way better pinpointing targets and identifying bottlecaps too...got 3968 coins $315.04 plus +3oz silver rings and bracelets, one little gold ring, so far this year running low sens. 4 silver dimes and 2 silver Q's. Though not with an AT, different brand, but similar freq and speed.
you are right MikeLab, you will NOT miss even small gold rings.
Mud

 

[MikeLab]

My back yard is horrible with trash. asily get ten targets on some sweeps in All Metal. I set the threshold to zero turned the sensitivity down all the way in DISC 1 and I could not believe how quiet it ran. Probably knocked out 99% of all trash. The cast iron pipes (maybe buried six inches deep) still sound off in a high tone but if I placed a gold ring over one of them it overpowered the pipe and still sounded off nicely.

I can see very thin rings may require one or two more bars of sensitivity and still keep things so much quieter. Still knocks out 95% of the trash.

I'm not saying to hunt this way always, just if you are looking for freshly dropped (maybe a year or two) targets in trashy areas.

 

[Hobo lobo]

You can also work closer to the ironswings, fence post etc.

 

[MikeLab]

I got out for some "real world" truthing in a city park today. What I found was many targets do not register on the target ID if you run at the lowest sensitivity setting. And I just did not feel comfortable not knowing what the ID for each target was so I bumped up the setting to two or three bars. And of course this pulled in more targets. At the trashiest areas there was still quite a few targets so I think it might be closer to a 50% trash reduction instead of the 95% I was getting in my yard. But still that is an improvement for those areas that are overwhelming with trash. I was still digging pull rings at four inches.

And to make a long story short, I did not find the diamond engagement ring a park employee told me about. I still had some good practice and found some nickels. I was digging everything between 38 and 57. Lots of pull rings and foil. The foil seems to be very tiny pinpoint and hits hard. The pull rings/beaver tails (51-53) really seem to hold the ID number without much wavering.

 

[MikeLab]

I did some more testing with a lady's 14K ring in DISC 1 and found the target ID numbers are either missing or inaccurate (sometimes read higher number) unless I have at least three bars on the sensitivity. It's possible in milder ground I might get by with two bars, I don't know. Certainly a larger target like a man's ring does not need three.

 

[Sailorman]

I have a few dirt parking lots I sweep every so often with the AT-Pro. Since nothing fresh is deeper than an inch I run with two bars sense and sweep the clad and occasional jewelry in them. Much higher and you start hitting the old cans and trash under the limestone that was played down. Works good for me!