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AT Pro - Impressions after 1st week of use.

Dig-Dug

Dig-Dug

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Feb 16, 2014
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Ocean Shores, WA
Well it's been almost one week since I got the new ATP. I'm sorry to say I haven't used it anywhere other than my own yard :(. I've had a ton of fun with it so far and just started using Pro Mode. From what I can tell so far, it makes the detector behave like a totally different animal. Maybe it is just me but it seems like Pro Mode is a little more sensitive and has faster recovery than Standard Mode does.

Here are a few things that have really stood out for me so far:

1. My yard is full of pennies and not a whole lot else :lol: Oh yeah, and there are a ton of potholes in my lawn now :laughing:.

2. I have 2 distinct classes of soils in my yard - sand and silt. These are very distinct, probably due to part of the property being native sand and part being fill. It seems the ATP will go deeper in the silt than it will in the sand. Is this normal? I don't know. I ground balance in both areas but it does not seem to make a difference in typical target depth.

3. My deepest target yet was an old 2 liter bottle cap 14" down :wow:. Maybe that is typical depth for that kind of target, but I thought it was impressive.

4. I seem to loose signals after digging the plug. For whatever reason, I will start digging a good signal and then rescan the plug and hole and loose the signal. It doesn't make any sense to me. This has happened on a few different targets. I don't know if it is something I am doing or if my coil is intermittently bad. Any thoughts on this?

5. I love the waterproof feature. It is a main reason why I picked the ATP. Not having to worry about it in the rain is a plus for me - and we get A LOT of rain around here.

6. It is going to take some time for me to get used to the Iron Audio. But once I do I think it is going to pay off in better targets & less trash being dug.

7. Most of my targets indicate 8" deep, even if they are not. I think I read somewhere someone else was experiencing this with the ATP. It seems to give a more accurate depth in the air though, as compared to a real target buried in the ground.

These are my first impressions. Please chime in and let me know what you think. Thanks.

Jon
 
Pro mode is more sensitive and has faster recovery. It's not your imagination.

Remember that the depth indication is for a coin sized object. Smaller objects can register deeper than actual, and larger objects will read shallower than actual depth.

When I get what I believe to be a solid signal and it's showing 1 inch deep, I stick the Pro Pointer to the ground. If the Pro Pointer is silent, I know it's a larger, deeper target. If I get a response from the Pro Pointer, I'm pretty sure it's really a coin or very similar size object.

I'm really liking my AT Pro. Maybe someday I'll try something different, but for now, I'm good.

Good luck and HH,

Papa
 
14" dig? That is impressive!
The only time I loose a signal is when the target is in the plug???
OR the target was very small like a rusty nail.
Be sure to check your VDO for number variance. solid numbers and depth= good target.
 
Got my at pro last Thursday and I've found a Indian head penny 6 wheat backs and a ton of clad I've only hunted my yard and the neighbors yards but I'm extremely happy so far I also got it for the water proof feature I'm in aberdeen so I can relate with all the rain I don't think I can be much help since I'm still learning too so GL and HH
 
mr.ace350 said:
Got my at pro last Thursday and I've found a Indian head penny 6 wheat backs and a ton of clad I've only hunted my yard and the neighbors yards but I'm extremely happy so far I also got it for the water proof feature I'm in aberdeen so I can relate with all the rain I don't think I can be much help since I'm still learning too so GL and HH
Click to expand...

Hey, you're the first person I've met in Grays Harbor that was also into detecting. Where do you hunt? I've thought about hunting the parks in Aberdeen but not sure if it is allowed. Now that the days are getting a little longer, I'm thinking of doing some detecting after work in Aberdeen and Hoquiam.
 
I've hunted a few parks in aberdeen when I had my ace 350 and never got bothered i do get asked if I'm finding anything I usually just say a bunch of pennies they just giggle and walk off I always see the same guy around town hitting the parks so I know there's at least one more guy around here hitting the parks also my brother works with a guy who just got a at pro and said he likes to hit the baseball field behind the grocery store in Westport and has good luck maybe it's you :laughing: my brother works at Sierra pacific
 
Sounds like your really paying attention to all the sounds and the screen too. That's a big part of it all, paying attention. Good luck your having fun already!
 
Iv notice it picks up cans deeper in sand or sandy soil. I have picked up aluminum cans at 18-20". It acts like they are shallower than what it really turns out to be. Lol

Sent from my SPH-L720 using Tapatalk
 
That "lost signal" is almost always an iron halo. If you get what you think is a hit, turn 90degrees and see if it's still a good hit. If not, check with the iron audio. 90percent of the time when I lose a signal I can chase it down in iron mode and it will be a rusty piece of iron.
 
Be sure and watch "Dirtfishing" aka Bill on youtube with the AT pro at a school yard full of nails in pro zero. He shows you how to pull coins from between the nails with the 5x8" coil.
 
On some really deep targets you will lose the signal sometimes, because you broke the halo around the target. I just keep digging deeper, until I can get close enough to find it with my Garrett Pro Pointer. I've found deep older silver coins doing this.

beephead
 
I did a little hunting after work tonight with the ATP. I hit a tot lot that luckily had a street light close by (it was getting dark and I didn't want to quit). Didn't find anything spectacular, just a few pennies, a zipper and costume jewelry.

The detector started going crazy near the sidewalk. I had to really back off the sensitivity to get it to quiet down. The vdi numbers were bouncing all over the place and it was chirping like a flock of birds singing out of tune. I dug one target and it was a large plastic lid that sounded hollow inside. So, I concluded it was an electrical box and there were power cables all over underground - probably feeding the streetlight I was hunting next to.

I didn't even think of changing frequencies. I don't know if it would have worked anyhow considering how strong the interference was. But my question is this - is it possible to damage the detector by overloading it with strong electrical signals? Or is there a protection circuit built in possibly?

Thanks.

Jon
 
Sounds like either EMI or rebar in the sidewalk. The frequency shift on the AT Pro is so slight that it won't make much of a difference with that kind of interference. I don't think you can overload the ATP with EMI, but it is hell on your ears and makes finding targets darn near impossible. As far as I know, backing off the sensitivity to minimize the effect or moving away from the EMI source is the only way to really deal with it.
 
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