Discerning mineral signals from "real" stuff???

Good question........I just got one of these machines too that I've been trying to learn and although around here the soil is not that bad I still get ghost signals that drive me wild at times. Turning down the sensitivity seems to help some and of-course proper ground balance is a must with this or most any medal detector for that matter and even then when everything is perfect you can still get out of the blue signals that can't be explained especially in pro mode.

One thing I found out is you can't go by that battery indicator. They say as long as one bar is showing you are good to go but I lost two nights of good hunting chasing wild weird signals with 3 bars showing on the meter. They claim 30 to 40 hours use out of a set of batteries but me don't think so, maybe 20 if that depending on the soil you are hunting in.

Hopefully some of the guys that have used these machines for a long enough time to really learn them will chime in with some suggestions. I like the machine as it is lighter than my Nautilus and the not having to worry about it getting wet is a big plus. I still haven't used it long enough to tell if it is a better machine as far a discrimination and depth but it does show promise and only time will tell. I'm a relic hunter not a treasure hunter and this machine seems better suited for the coin or treasure hunter. I've found more coins with this machine than I ever found with my Naughty but I think with time I can train my ears to sort through the good and bad signals or the good and gooder LOL signals to know when to dig and when to pass a signal by.

One thing I wish they would do to this machine to make it easier to use, especially at night is a simpler way to switch from pro mode to std mode. A single pad or switch would be nice rather than having to scale through the three, custom, coin, zero modes to get to the pro or std mode. It's hard to tell what mode you are in or to get back to where you sometimes because you can't see what's on the display unless you turn on some kind of a light which can be bad at times with messing up your night vision in all.

The purpose of ground balancing is to separate good targets from bad targets (the ground minerals and salt). Lowering your ground balance number from say 90 down to 60 only enhances high conductive targets, like some minerals and especially "hot rocks". Review your Owner's Manual, Page 1. Re-read Ground balancing section page 31 and 32. You have a metal detector. What are you specifically searching for? What primary metal? Some targets you don't want mimic targets you do want. For instance gold and platinum rings require listening to and digging lots of aluminum alloyed material. Relic hunters may have to listen to hot rocks and other mineralized targets in their search for iron objects. In either case, how does one know what is a good target? Much practice and experience. You will discover what works best for YOU in the state, county, town and ground and primary target you are searching to recover. Are you up for it? It is very rewarding when using the AT Pro.

Outbackwack said:

When out on my first day with the AT Pro I dug up a couple of iron signals that was either a layer in the sand or a group of rocks and much of my area is geographically like that (high iron and manganese). I quickly starting ignoring a lot of those signals. If I dug everything, I'd be digging absolutely nothing quite a bit of the time. So how do you differentiate the mineral signals from real iron or other objects? Is that even possible? My ground balance is up near 90. If I set it to 60 or less the ATP just sings. I just want my efforts to be productive (don't we all!!!) Thanks!

Click to expand...

Sounds like you have a really rough place to detect. Do some air testing with good and bad targets. Notice the audio difference in the two?

Might want to look at a smaller 5x8 DD coil too. That would help!