Hello Paul. Welcome to the great fraternity of Garrett Hunters. Your wife bought you a nice coin/jewellry detector. It is easy to use, readily takes both recharge ables or alkaline batteries. May I suggest you start off in coins mode. This will get you lots of pennies, some nickels and some quarters. It might also be an idea to just dig the shallow targets for a while. That might make your learning curve a more pleasant experience.
Try hunting at schools, in playgrounds, sports fields or where the students eat their lunch. There should be a lot of coins there to keep you busy. Don't get too wrapped up about digging lots of junk targets, as we all do. We just don't post them because they are just plain ugly
. Below is a link to the GTA 550 Field Test, done by no other then
"BILL G. REVIS" a regular on this forum. I also added a blurb on how Garrett Detectors read Canadian coins, as they were designed to read those US coins.
Good luck, and let us know how you make out,and please post your finds!
http://losttreasure.com/fieldtests/ArchiveView07.cfm?ID=LT20010236
HOW GARRETT METAL DETECTORS READ CANADIAN COINS
Here is how most of the Garrett metal Detectors should read Canadian Coins....
PENNIES: Depending on their year and length of time in the ground, expect them to read one notch before the penny icon to a couple of notches past the penny icon. You have to dig dig dig.
NICKELS: Again....what year and length of time in ground. They will either show up at the penny icon or nickel icon. They tend to give a smooth signal on the nickel notch, not a rough sound like the sound of a pulltab.
Dimes: If 1968 0r older,(silver)they will read clearly in the penny range. Newer, they might not read at all if freshly minted and recently fallen on the ground. (not to worry, my buddies non-Garrett machine does the same) If they have been in the ground, say for several months, they tend to bounce around pulltab and coin. If you dig the plug and loose the signal, chances are that you got a clad dime. You now need to find it in all metal mode (pinpointing) to find it and remove it.
Quarters:1968 or older read in coin range, usually smack dead center under the quarter icon. If new, again, might be missed. If in the ground for at least several months, expect it to bounce around penny, quarter and pulltab icon. Again, once you make a plug, you may loose the signal, so you have to use pinpoint mode to find it and remove it.
Loonies and Toonies ($1.00 & $2.00 coins) give a strong signal under the coil at penny or quarter. Garrett machines like these coins. If you get one under your coil, you will surely dig it!
Summary on Canadian Coins:
If you hunt in coin mode and notch out the nickel and pulltab, you will still get nearly all of your Canadian Coins, with the exception of a few nickels. "BUT", you might also miss out on a gold ring too. So, based on your goals and available time for a hunt, choose your programs carefully.
Some other makes and models of detectors will not read or barely read our Toonies, Loonies, & nickels. I know from experience from hunting recently hunted playgrounds, and that's what I usually found...nickels, loonies. toonies and some other clad. I suspect that Garrett engineering designed their machines to detect these one and two dollar coins, as I sent them one of each several years ago. I am also hearing from others using the recent Garrett lines of detectors getting the same results.
Because nearly all detectors are made in USA, they read U.S. coins with great accuracy. When hunting Canadian coins, you need to slow down a bit, and if you get any signal at all, you should go over it in different directions.....to see if it will read and bounce around in the coin and pulltab range.
Hope this helps!
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