Rich from RI

Thank you Steve, I will read over all the links you provided. I know here in Rhode Island, the ATX will be a dynamite detector on the beach in the water. For relic and coin hunting, the XP Deus seems to be the hot machine. There are a lot of cellar holes from long-gone colonial homes scattered throughout the State where the Deus seems to shine. I am more interested in the thousands of acres of farm land and deserted farm land (now overgrown and wooded); there is less iron trash in these locations vs. the cellar holes, but still a sizeable amount. Thanks again for your help. Will try and learn more about reading the tones and using the discrimination (right now I have the discrimination set to the lowest level on the ATX, which I believe is great for depth, but not so good with all this iron). On the positive side, no need to go to the gym with all this digging exercise.

Hello, Need some help/advice. I receive a Garrett ATX from my kids for Christmas. I am new to metal detecting, but the kids wanted to buy me a real good detector for beach hunting. I live in Rhode Island and plan on doing a lot of beach hunting. I also live in a very historic (colonial) area of the U.S and would like to do some relic/coin hunting. I know this is an advanced PI machine and I am a beginner, but I now own this machine and have to learn how to use it. I know there are other machines that would be better for relic/coin hunting, that will discriminate out most of the iron, I have done a lot of internet research on this topic. The kids bought me this machine, not going to return it, so I need to learn how to use it. The last two days I ventured out into some local fields to try out my new machine. These fields are surrounded by 200+ year old stone walls (very common in New England). This area was settled by the early colonist, so there is a lot of stuff (junk and potential good targets) in the ground. This area, I'm sure, has been hunted for decades by metal deterorists, so if there is anything else to find, I will assume it is deep. From the research I have done, the Garrett ATX would be a machine to go down deep. Well, the last two day were interesting/frustrating. I am a very patient person, and yes, I know it will take a long time to really understand how to use this machine and learn all the tones and sounds. I dug up a lot of iron the last two days, sometimes the iron check works, and other times it doesn't. I am hearing mostly high/low signals and only a few low/high signals. The pin pointing works real well. So any advice to help me learn how to use this machine the correct way, or is it really just lots of time in the field? Any advice/help would be greatly appreciated.