Is your AT Pro doing this ?

[Digger]

The AT PRO is a force to be reckoned with without a doubt, but I don't know If I'd say it out performs the E-Trac. As far as gold goes the AT wins hands down, but the E-Trac, in my experience, is the deeper coin detector.

 

Amazon Forum Fav 👍

Upgraded Night Vision Monocular Digital Infrared Monocular Telescope for 100% Darkness with 8X Zoom - Grab it through Amazon!

[EZrider]

The AT beat out the ET in hitting at depth but not by much. But the AT nor ET could ID the target. The AT hit in iron,mid high bouncing back and forth. You would have never dug the ring.

I think the ET is still better at hunting the parks. And has payed for itself. The seperation of targets is just better.

I think that if Jim sends his AT back they are going to find it has a problem. To me it does and wouldn't be happy with it. If Garrett sends a stable machine that can ID correct at depth it would be great.

All the machines except for the CZ hit the ring on edge and ID at 5in. CZ did it at 7. We put the ring flat at 8in and only the CZ could hit and ID it.

 

[shellfrag]

Jim has it going on Toms fourm. In short the CZ was king. AT was next in line. ETRac and then Excal. Although the AT could hit the target at depth. The tone and ID was all over. There was no way to tell if it was good or not. Same thing with the ET,,,, all over. The CZ hit hard and clear mid tone.

So, a malfunctioning AT pro out preformed an Etrac and an Excal. I can only imagine what a properly working AT would do.

 

[pro778]

I think that if Jim sends his AT back they are going to find it has a problem. To me it does and wouldn't be happy with it. If Garrett sends a stable machine that can ID correct at depth it would be great.

If such a defective detector can do that good, one that is working right should be able to hit a ring at 24"
I'm still waiting to see the video to see how you could find anything with all that coil noise

 

[EZrider]

The noise is the problem. Depth means nothing if it can't id. I have seen a modified 1266 that cloud hit a dime in the ground at 12inches and id. I will see what the Pro coil does on the ET with the same test. Jim is also sending his machine back.

 

[Keppy]

I got a AT Pro with out any falseing or coil noise ............A lot of us did and the AT does out do the $1200.00 & $1500.00 detectors .... Now that is something to think about............

 

[Keppy]

The AT PRO is a force to be reckoned with without a doubt, but I don't know If I'd say it out performs the E-Trac. As far as gold goes the AT wins hands down, but the E-Trac, in my experience, is the deeper coin detector.

On coins my Sovereign is not any deeper than the AT Pro and my Sovereign gets the same depth as the E-trac...........

 

[Digger]

My testing, between the AT Pro and E-Trac, showed the AT Pro could see any coins I found at the edge of the E-Tracs ability, but I thought the E-Tracs ID was a little more reliable. The E-Tracs tone ID was more consistent and predictable as was the TID. Now this was on coins that were on the very edge of the E-Tracs ability. This also was ONLY on extremely deep coppers and silvers. When it came to gold the AT Pro hit it easily at 3 times the depth of the E-Trac, and hits some gold solid that was invisible to the E-Trac.

Again, the key here was being able to more accurately tell the user of a probable extremely deep coin with the ET over the AT. Both could see the coin and with practice I'm sure one would learn to identify the same deep coin, but right now I can spot the deep coins easier with the E-Trac.

 

[EZrider]

Digger well siad. I feel the same way.

 

[dogpound]

My testing, between the AT Pro and E-Trac, showed the AT Pro could see any coins I found at the edge of the E-Tracs ability, but I thought the E-Tracs ID was a little more reliable. The E-Tracs tone ID was more consistent and predictable as was the TID. Now this was on coins that were on the very edge of the E-Tracs ability. This also was ONLY on extremely deep coppers and silvers. When it came to gold the AT Pro hit it easily at 3 times the depth of the E-Trac, and hits some gold solid that was invisible to the E-Trac.

Again, the key here was being able to more accurately tell the user of a probable extremely deep coin with the ET over the AT. Both could see the coin and with practice I'm sure one would learn to identify the same deep coin, but right now I can spot the deep coins easier with the E-Trac.

now consider this.......the AT pro is 1/3 the cost and waterproof

 

[Indasurf]

My testing, between the AT Pro and E-Trac, showed the AT Pro could see any coins I found at the edge of the E-Tracs ability, but I thought the E-Tracs ID was a little more reliable. The E-Tracs tone ID was more consistent and predictable as was the TID. Now this was on coins that were on the very edge of the E-Tracs ability. This also was ONLY on extremely deep coppers and silvers. When it came to gold the AT Pro hit it easily at 3 times the depth of the E-Trac, and hits some gold solid that was invisible to the E-Trac.

Again, the key here was being able to more accurately tell the user of a probable extremely deep coin with the ET over the AT. Both could see the coin and with practice I'm sure one would learn to identify the same deep coin, but right now I can spot the deep coins easier with the E-Trac.

Thanks for the detailed posting! The At-Pro sure seems like a "no-brainer" with a retail list of around $600. vs $1500. for an E-Trac! It also sounds like the 15khz is much hotter on small gold which could pay off the machine real quick.

As you've mentioned, with practice the AT should be lethal in a skilled users hands.

 

[synthnut]

Garrett graciously sent UPS to my door to pick up my AT Pro, and they will be giving it a good look .....They will be checking it out , and I will post back when my machine comes back .....I'm not sure whether they will fix the one that I sent in, or send me another machine .....Either way , I look forward to getting it back ..... There is no doubt in my mind that if my next machine does not excessively false like the first one did , that I will have a great little machine !!.... I've already built a straight shaft for it , ready to go !!.... Now if I can just wave my hand and see this snow disappear , I'll be ready to go !!....After about 6-7 inches the visual ID and the tone ID are not accurate , but you STILL get a tone just the same to let you know that there is a target down there ...It's not perfect , but still alerts you to a target , so I will be digging those targets on the beach anyway .... I was pleasantly surprised to see the performance of this little guy !!..... I'll keep you posted as things progress ....Thanks, Jim

Digger ,
I agree with you as to the E Trac ID'ing better, but as you say, it's 3 times the price .....For the purpose that I bought my AT Pro for , it will be a great little machine and well worth owning !!...It will be a dry sand beach sweeper that will be finding recent drops from the beach goers !! .....I have NEVER had a machine pinpoint better , and I DON"T EVEN USE THE PINPOINT button !!..... I can move quickly from one spot to the other , and ID zinc and copper pennies , and know JUST what I am digging up without any waste of time .... Jim

 

[Keppy]

Yes sir Garrett hit a home run with the..AT Pro ....................

 

[John-Edmonton]

Garrett graciously sent UPS to my door to pick up my AT Pro, and they will be giving it a good look .....They will be checking it out , and I will post back when my machine comes back .....I'm not sure whether they will fix the one that I sent in, or send me another machine .....Either way , I look forward to getting it back

I hope you get an AT Pro in better shape then the one you sent in and maybe a little deeper too.

 

[shellfrag]

Garrett graciously sent UPS to my door to pick up my AT Pro, and they will be giving it a good look .....They will be checking it out , and I will post back when my machine comes back .....I'm not sure whether they will fix the one that I sent in, or send me another machine .....Either way , I look forward to getting it back ..... There is no doubt in my mind that if my next machine does not excessively false like the first one did , that I will have a great little machine !!.... I've already built a straight shaft for it , ready to go !!.... Now if I can just wave my hand and see this snow disappear , I'll be ready to go !!....After about 6-7 inches the visual ID and the tone ID are not accurate , but you STILL get a tone just the same to let you know that there is a target down there ...It's not perfect , but still alerts you to a target , so I will be digging those targets on the beach anyway .... I was pleasantly surprised to see the performance of this little guy !!..... I'll keep you posted as things progress ....Thanks, Jim

Digger ,
I agree with you as to the E Trac ID'ing better, but as you say, it's 3 times the price .....For the purpose that I bought my AT Pro for , it will be a great little machine and well worth owning !!...It will be a dry sand beach sweeper that will be finding recent drops from the beach goers !! .....I have NEVER had a machine pinpoint better , and I DON"T EVEN USE THE PINPOINT button !!..... I can move quickly from one spot to the other , and ID zinc and copper pennies , and know JUST what I am digging up without any waste of time .... Jim

How can you come to the conclusion that the visual id and tone id are not accurate if you have a machine that isn't working properly

 

[extractor]

 

[gleaner1]

Garrett graciously sent UPS to my door to pick up my AT Pro, and they will be giving it a good look .....They will be checking it out , and I will post back when my machine comes back .....I'm not sure whether they will fix the one that I sent in, or send me another machine .....Either way , I look forward to getting it back ..... There is no doubt in my mind that if my next machine does not excessively false like the first one did , that I will have a great little machine !!.... I've already built a straight shaft for it , ready to go !!.... Now if I can just wave my hand and see this snow disappear , I'll be ready to go !!....After about 6-7 inches the visual ID and the tone ID are not accurate , but you STILL get a tone just the same to let you know that there is a target down there ...It's not perfect , but still alerts you to a target , so I will be digging those targets on the beach anyway .... I was pleasantly surprised to see the performance of this little guy !!..... I'll keep you posted as things progress ....Thanks, Jim

Digger ,
I agree with you as to the E Trac ID'ing better, but as you say, it's 3 times the price .....For the purpose that I bought my AT Pro for , it will be a great little machine and well worth owning !!...It will be a dry sand beach sweeper that will be finding recent drops from the beach goers !! .....I have NEVER had a machine pinpoint better , and I DON"T EVEN USE THE PINPOINT button !!..... I can move quickly from one spot to the other , and ID zinc and copper pennies , and know JUST what I am digging up without any waste of time .... Jim

How can you come to the conclusion that the visual id and tone id are not accurate if you have a machine that isn't working properly

shellfrag, very very good question, except you forgot the question mark. Two posts in one year and I think you put the fire out on this terribly enigmatic yet ambiguous and somewhat nerve wracking, almost disturbing crazy thread. I tried like hell and really couldn't, so I thank you. At the end of the day, there is nothing at all wrong with OP's ATPro.

 

[JG]

,...

I used to like the visual ID info on my Explorer XS but it was a slow machine with too many things to fool around with. All those gee-whiz features did not cut the mustard when it came to depth. Too much screen time was wasted. At a readable depth any target was fun to ID but the deeper fringe targets have been troublesome for older machines and designs. I can see where adapting to a more conventional machine could be a difficulty for some. Transitioning away from ML screens is not easy if that is what you are used to in your equipment.


The ATPRO is best operated by listening first and then using screen info second to evaluate. Any target unlike a US coin is always going to be a crapshoot, even rings. Coins are uniform in size, shape and alloy and being round, can be pigeon-holed on a machine easily. It is the fringe targets most of us are looking for and they have tricked others before us.

I just got my ATPRO and it unmaskes good targets from iron real good, in fact it is the best I have found. The geometry of the coil is very good and an improvement often overlooked for how it complements the control head in function. With the circuitry and programming this machine is an overlooked break-through.

You E-trackers can keep them in the closet if you think detecting with this machine is all about looking at the dashboard. It is a very simple machine to use but you have to let your ears have the priority input to your brain. Learn from real targets what a good repeatable sound is on what you want to find. Then learn what the same thing sounds like at the edge of detection. The edge of detection with this machine is way better than the XS. The E-Trac went with a new coil geometry to gain an advantage over previous models. So did the AT PRO. You don’t have to work harder using the AT PRO to evaluate a target, but you do have to learn this machine without thinking like it is a ML. That screen is a real crutch for ML owners and they will not be happy without it if they cannot let it go.

I could not think of any other way to ruin a detectorists ear than by going with the Explorer and son-of-explorer series machines right off the bat. You get way too much tunnel vision looking at the screen and the details of the audio are totally missed. With that type of machine audio is one-dimensional because your eyes are taking over. A bad habit to be cured from for sure. You will still have to dig a few pull tabs if you want to be 100% sure you did not miss any gold, therefore, there is no advantage with all the menu-driven hoopla. They do not hit small gold hard and if they did the prospectors would all have one. ( the better you can hit small gold with a low range VLF machine [<20KHZ] , the better depth it will have on large gold or on the more perfect gold ring.)

If you ever learn enough about your machine to find out there are not 28 frequencies but simply harmonics of weaker amplitude from the fundamental, then you will wake-up. That is why they are great hitting silver and sucky at hitting small gold. The 28 frequencies is the biggest line of BS and you don’t get BS with Garrett or any US company for that matter. US companies do not sell you on BS technological jargon PEROID. VSAT is another feature that adds no value to performance unless you want to remote a coil 30 feet away. All three coils could have been ID’d at the head but VSAT was proprietary technology from the counter-measures products: vehicles with many coils on a boom. VSAT was sold as a technological advantage no one would use for what it was designed for. Why then, did some buy it? For pretty pictures and advertising? Suckers!

The At Pro is so simple. Bottle cap ID is the best with this machine and depth is totally awesome (for a round gold ring you will hear a nice repeatable tone that later shows a narrow range of ID numbers, with wider spreads at greater depths). When you learn to run this machine you will be spending less time looking at the screen, so don’t make it a crutch now.
Some targets give no ID and this is not uncommon with all the deep machines out there. It is not a fault, it is the way things are because generally you are getting info on a target nobody else has hit. There are few machines I would not try to detect behind if the operator really knew how to use it and the AT PRO is one of them. I am talking about the masked and deep targets. The AT PRO has both depth and excellent iron unmasking and that is the bar.

I know you can program out certain pull tabs with the ML’s. But, if you are not digging pull tabs (old ones) you are missing the gold. The AT PRO can successfully tell you if you are on a steel bottle cap. It can tell you if you are on foil but you have to listen and not look first. That leaves you with pulls, coins, rings and lead to dig if you listen. That is a big advantage if you can learn what the machine’s language is. Turn down the sensitivity when you are on a questionable target and listen. It is simple to learn and you will know a good target before you even look at the screen when you learn to listen.

Anybody can hit the shallow targets and ID them. The pounded land lots are new ground with the AT PRO and that has been seen repeatedly with the few that can hunt now. That is something you do not hear often, so listen-up. For what it does in depth and in unmasking and in target ID audio, it is the best VLF out there in many regards. The price is excellent and it is many times the machine my XS is because I can hit and find the deep and fringe targets it passed by. It also has lightning fast recovery to separate adjacent targets.

If all you know is ML, I pity you and all the bad habits you learned. You may not like any other machine or learn how to use it because of the ML screen crutch you are too dependent of. Some of the features of the AT PRO cannot be bought at any price in the competition’s inventory. Like with the 250, savvy detectorists knew a performance value when they saw one and jumped on it. They are fun to own too.

 

[synthnut]

JG,
I will surely agree that the AT Pro is a much easier , lighter, and faster, machine to own .....I will also agree that it handles Gold very well ......I did not have time to detect other than a sandy beach and down into some wet salty area's, because of snow constraints ...... Detecting on the dry sand , the AT Pro ID's very well , but when talking of ID'ing at over 6" or more , the E Trac will trump the AT Pro in spades , at least in the dry sand ....I cannot , and will not , be able to say until Springtime how well the AT Pro does in the dirt , especially when it comes to hunting Silver ..... What Silver I have found in the dry sand , the AT Pro hit , but very softly as if they were distant coins .... The E Trac hit's harder on Silver in the dry sand and ID's correctly ..... On deeper targets , the manual suggests that the AT Pro will loose visual ID , but will still have a good audio ID ....I found this to be true , except for the fact that the audio ID is not accurate .... When doing a gold/depth test with it in the sand , at about 7" or so , the Gold ring DID hit and give a tone , but it was a high tone ..... For arguement sake , I am going to dig just about anything at the beach anyway , but if I were relying on a low/mid tone while searching for Gold , I would have passed over it ....

I bought the AT Pro to hit the beach with , and find recent drops from the weekend warriors .....I wanted something fast and light , and something that could ID coins so I was not pulling pennies all day ....I will have to say that I am pretty impressed that I can ID memorial's from Copper pennies, and that while the AT has a more variable iron range, the coin range is still very informative ....
Gold is it's forte though , and that's what I'm on the beach looking for .....I am glad that you mentioned the coil shape and size .... I have been meaning to mention it in some of my reports , and have also enjoyed it's shape .....Not thrilled with the tabs on it for water hunting , but I will beef them up some before doing an heavy exploration ..... Thanks, Jim

 

[JG]

There is more to the AT PRO audio than tone. You missed the message; you do not understand how to use this machine to its full extent. If all you hear is tone in PRO mode, you are not listening to the quality of the sound a target makes. That YouTube of yours is a total joke. I am not convinced you have been at this hobby for very long. Since you are getting your machine in the shop, is there any reasonable reason to keep the YouTube posted? It does not fool experienced detectorists.

Want to see how Garrett makes their coils? It is no secret here: http://www.garrett.com/media/how_its_made/how_its_made.html

After one trip out you got your wish and the machine is going to get a look over. I do not understand how you can determine how well the machine can work after one trip to the beach, the first hunt after the snow melt. If it does have a problem, your evaluation in comparison is invalid. If it does not have a problem your conclusions are invalid too. Anyone who has run the machine for a few hours detecting and has been around knows your 6 inch depth limitation for target identification is off balanced and out-of-line. Repeated air tests by owners and Garrett prove otherwise. Actual results are even more impressive with deep recoveries in worked-out and hammered locations.

The machine is deep and has excellent target separation. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt the machine needs a company evaluation, but that will not cure you of bad habits you learned from the E-Trac. If you ever hunted with an analog machine before with any time with one, you would see the AT PRO in a different light and appreciate what it does and can do.

You will never break free of a pixilated screen and its limitations for out of range targets at the edge of VLF detection with hasty evaluations in comparison. Face it, you are very dependent on the screen. E-Trac audio is one dimensional and you are expected to look at the screen for each target, no matter what tone is presented to you. A bad habit IMHO. AT PRO audio can help define the geometry of a target and no ML can do that. I have no problem hunting behind my Explorer XS with my AT PRO, it has proved worth-while to do so. The E-Trac has an improved coil but the habits of the owners has showed me that detecting behind them is a rewarding experience in their faces. It sucks on small gold and any gold at depth/at the edge of detection, including rings that have a wonderful geometry for detection. What a waste of time swinging one when you pass up what is not on the screen in some happy pixilated place. There is nothing like digging a gopher hole that reads in as a good target with a ML, in fact I found it an exclusive ML feature that is worthless beyond measure. When it comes to foil, the AT PRO tells more than you know and has the ML at a loss. I can cover more ground without having to stop and mess around in the menu like they are. I can evaluate a target faster with the AT PRO and that means more time swinging for and digging good targets even in ZERO-ZERO if I want to. If I want face time on a screen, I’ll get one of those new phones to look at all day and hang my head looking at it while walking around.

Being that you are a beach hunter, what do you intend to use in the water if the AT PRO you have is for dry beach? I saw you are waterproofing a ML SE (Dec ’10). You would have been better off waterproofing a Lobo ST, it would also teach you how to listen. Are you sure you will ever be happy in owning an AT PRO? If the E-Trac has you handicapped, keep your arm in the cuff of one. You won’t know what you missed. That would be a happy thing for you and whoever works behind you with an AT PRO. It is a win-win solution for all. Be happy in your work.

You cannot get outside of the ML box with a ML. Where the ML fails at the edge of detection, the AT PRO excels in spades in detecting missed targets others passed over at hammered sites – and with great simplicity. I own both and know this to be a fact. The bottle cap and foil count is way low in my pouch when I run my AT PRO, that means I do not waste much time carefully digging them and wondering why I did.