Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'garrett at'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • Metal Detecting & Gold Prospecting Forums
    • Meet & Greet
    • Detector Prospector Forum
    • Metal Detecting For Coins & Relics
    • Metal Detecting For Jewelry
    • Metal Detector Advice & Comparisons
    • Metal Detecting & Prospecting Classifieds
    • AlgoForce Metal Detectors
    • Compass, D-Tex, Tesoro, Etc.
    • First Texas - Bounty Hunter, Fisher & Teknetics
    • Garrett Metal Detectors
    • Minelab Metal Detectors
    • Nokta / Makro Metal Detectors
    • Quest Metal Detectors
    • Tarsacci Metal Detectors
    • White's Metal Detectors
    • XP Metal Detectors
    • Metal Detecting For Meteorites
    • Gold Panning, Sluicing, Dredging, Drywashing, Etc
    • Rocks, Minerals, Gems & Geology

Categories

  • Best of Forums
  • Gold Prospecting
  • Steve's Guides
  • Steve's Mining Journal
  • Steve's Reviews

Categories

  • Free Books
  • Bounty Hunter
  • Fisher Labs
  • Garrett Electronics
  • Keene Engineering
  • Minelab Electronics
  • Miscellaneous
  • Nokta/Makro
  • Teknetics
  • Tesoro Electronics
  • White's Electronics
  • XP Metal Detectors
  • Member Submissions - 3D Printer Files
  • Member Submissions - Metal Detector Settings

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End


Group


Website URL


Facebook


YouTube


Instagram


Twitter


Pinterest


LinkedIn


Skype


Location:


Interests:


Gear In Use:

  1. I know this is an apples to oranges comparison and don't intend to determine which is "better" as each is better suited for certain specific tasks. That being said, I do want to find out which machine would do better (deeper) on tiny small gold. I suspect the AT Gold would be stronger on less than 0.2 gram nuggets but I know the ATX is quite good on small nuggets also (better than the Infinium). I've recently watched a couple of videos where the AT Gold hit a one grain nugget at about an inch and the ATX found a 0.16 gram nugget near the surface in bedrock (thanks Bearkat4160 and DetectorComparisons). So, has anyone compared these two machines on tiny nuggets? I'd appreciate any info.
  2. Well done video showing the responses on found targets compared between White's MX Sport and Garrett AT Pro. These machines are fairly comparable although the AT Pro lacks the true threshold based all metal mode that is offered on the MX Sport. The Garrett AT Gold adds that mode and might be a better match up feature-wise with the MX Sport (all three being waterproof to ten feet) but the AT Gold comes with a much smaller coil geared for nugget detecting. The coil on the AT Pro and MX Sport are roughly comparable. This is how I test detectors myself though on way more targets. At Pro 15 kHz 8.5" x 11" DD 3.03 lbs $595 AT Gold 18 khz 5" x 8" DD 3.0 lbs $680 MX Sport 13.9 khz 10" round DD 4.2 lbs $749
  3. Having just taken delivery of a brand new Garrett AT Pro, I wish to high heaven I waited until I had the cash to pay for a Nokta. After having spent literally months studying and researching which detector I should get, after getting it and taking it to the beach on Saturday, I'm stunned at the fact it is now falsing so badly you can move it any way you like and it gives low, medium and/or high tones. Did all the factory resets when it was switched on and when it was switched off...to no avail. Being on a pension, every dollar is valuable and I've scrounged, scrimped and saved for a new detector for so long now, and this is what Garrett come up with. Unbelievable. And as it came from the US (I live in Oz), it looks as though I have to go through all the pain and grief of sending it back to the US if I'm to get any satisfaction on having it repaired. However, one thing of which is certain; when it's fixed, it's 'outski' and onto the market and I'll get a new Nokta. Thanks for nothing Garrett. But thanks for a great review, Steve, you've sold me on the Nokta.
  4. Hi Steve I posted on findmall this same topic and then i found your site and reviews on nugget machines ....which were very good ...but i was wondering which unit would be the best ...for what i want to do I have land hunted for 40 years and in the ocean with a pi unit aqua pulse 1b ...but i have found some nugget areas here ,,,so ive been told ,,,,here in the DR and would like to try my hand a that ,,since i spend my winters here .....no gold where i live in the states (MO).... I have a explorer se and x-teera 70 ,,,,but would like a water proof unit for nugget hunting in the streams ,,and banks Any ideas ? I had a infium ,but didnt care for the 2 tone thing,,,,and i used an ace 350 but thought the response time from target to tone was slow...are the garrets atx and at gold like this ? Do any of these units you recomend have multi tone and resonalbe response time ? simalar to the SE, which just love that unit .... Thanks don
  5. Just wanted to say Hello to everybody and add a big thank you to Steve for his help selecting my new AT Gold. Steve your post in the old forum http://www.akmining.biz/forums/showthread.php/2094-Garrett-AT-Pro-versus-AT-Gold.html really iced the cake when making my decision. Thank you for taking the time to help others and share your knowledge. I bought an AT Gold to add to my bag of tricks. If you read the other post in the link, I was looking for something to compliment my GPX 5000 and GMT. I originally intended the AT Gold to be a turn on and go detector for searching cabin sites found while tromping around through the woods. After getting to spend a couple hours with the AT Gold I think it's duties will be expanded a bit. I am quite pleased with the performance and ease of use, it will fill the gap between the 5000 and GMT perfectly for my needs. With the small DD coil that comes with it, In all metal mode I was able to pickup my small test nuggets I use for the GMT, granted not nearly as strong or consistent as the GMT but it will pick them up if I am right on them. For what I bought this machine for that's better than I expected. I was able to get out to a local spot to play around for an hour or so before I had to head out of town. The coins in the pic were all found in a very trashy area using discrim 1 setting and iron discrim set at 30, sensitivity maxed out or one notch down from max. I would still get some bleed through from the trash but the coins came through loud and clear, with a positive I.D. of 81 to 83 on the screen. You knew for sure it was a coin before digging. Granted most of these coins are newer vintage ( a couple wheats in there) than what I'm looking for but they came through loud and clear. Target separation was excellent and very quick. If anyone is considering this unit...I wouldn't hesitate. I can't wait to continue my testing (and finding). Thanks again, Kenny
  6. Despite all the noise about pulse induction (PI) metal detectors these days I firmly believe that in the United States most beginning and many professional nugget hunters are often better served with a good mid-frequency VLF. For beginners I think it is more important to master the real skills involved in prospecting before investing a ton of money in a metal detector. If you can't find gold with a $700 detector there is little point in investing thousands of dollars in a detector that still probably will not find the person any gold. Perhaps a PI is required in most of Australia but I have seen very few places in the United States where a good VLF will not work very well or at least well enough. Certainly in Alaska that is the case, where low mineral ground and smallish gold is the norm. Even locations where large gold lurks are so loaded with iron junk a PI detector has a hard go of it. It is nearly impossible to convince die-hard PI users to accept this until they experience it for themselves. One of the best detectorists I know has found hundreds of ounces of gold including two nuggets each weighing over a pound, all with a White's MXT. He also has a Minelab GPX 5000 and is very good with it. This last summer we hunted a lot together in junk infested tailing piles. I tended to use my GPX 5000 and he tended to use his MXT. We ran neck and neck for finds, and he detected less and dug way less junk than I. When all the shallow stuff is gone a PI shows its value with extra depth. But in target rich environments, especially ones filled with junk, a good VLF is a worthy choice. Let's set the VLF versus PI thing aside though and accept for the purposes of this article that VLF detectors are still a good choice for many people in the United States. I know for a fact I could own nothing but a VLF and do very well indeed. So what VLF to own? Two detectors stand out in their high operating frequency as dedicated nugget detectors, the Fisher Gold Bug 2 and White's GMT. I could make a great argument for why either of these detectors will eke out gold where other detectors fail and do it consistently enough that a skilled operator would be wise to own either one. However, I think overall a better case can be made that if a person had to own just one VLF detector, a mid-frequency model would be a better choice. There is much more versatility offered plus a better balance of performance on all ground types and all gold sizes than the hot high frequency models. The contenders from the "Big Five" brands? The Fisher Gold Bug Pro (also sold as Teknetics G2), Garrett AT Gold, Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold, Tesoro Lobo SuperTRAQ, and White's MXT. All available for around $700 more or less. This is the choice I personally faced, and the decision took several years of use to settle. What follows is purely personal but I will explain why I ended up where I did. Fisher Gold Bug Pro, Garrett AT Gold, Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold, Tesoro Lobo, White's MXT First up, the White's MXT. Simply a superb detector, and one that has found me pounds of gold. Yet I am just going to go ahead and blow White's off at this point! Why? The weight. I am sorry White's, but at 4.3 pounds the MXT is the heaviest detector in this slug-fest. I love what the detector does, but I am no longer willing to forgive detectors with poor ergonomic factors, weight being the most obvious. In the 21st century, the day and age of the iPhone, poor ergonomics is not acceptable. The MXT needs to lose a pound, plain and simple. So I sold my MXT after one particularly arm wearing day. Now the Tesoro Lobo SuperTRAQ is a great beginners detector in that it is very easy to operate, but it also gets put aside. The detector is locked in ground tracking at all times while in all metal nugget mode. This is great for beginners but I personally find it unacceptable. I almost never use ground tracking systems as they mess with the signals from weak targets. If there was a locked or fixed mode it would be fine. Worse yet, the alternative discriminate mode has a factory pre-set ground balance. Sorry, fail. Just my opinion, but the Lobo is way overdue for an update after 16 years on the market. Garrett is to be commended for finally producing a waterproof detector that does not penalize the owner by weighing a ton and removing all the features. The AT Gold is a miracle in being waterproof and yet fully featured, with even the speaker being waterproof. And only three pounds with batteries! This detector is so wonderful I really do feel bad about taking a pass on it here also. Why? Sadly, the waterproof design also means special o-ring connectors for the coils and headphones. If you do not need the detector to be waterproof they are delicate connectors that collect dirt and require quite a bit of care to not mess up. The coil connection in particular is in a maddening location making it almost impossible to connect coils with bare fingers alone. A special adapter must be purchased if you want to have a choice in headphones. If you want waterproof the AT Gold is an obvious choice but I do not need waterproof for most of my nugget detecting. So down to two models, the Fisher Gold Bug Pro and Minelab X-Terra 705 Gold. Both under the magic 3 pound mark! Both with extremely powerful all metal modes. So powerful that in all metal mode these detectors give the PI units a run for depth in most ground on most gold in the US. This was tough for me as the X-Terra has a far richer feature set than the Gold Bug Pro and for many all around users would be the better choice. But I looked at both from strictly a nugget hunting perspective where those extra features are extraneous to the task at hand. It came down to this. In all metal mode the Gold Bug Pro is simultaneously and separately running in discriminate mode. The audio response is pure all metal, but you also get the probable target id, when possible, displayed on the screen. Very deep targets will have no target id, which is why we are using all metal prospect mode in the first place. The X-Terra 705 you can run in Prospect Mode or Discriminate Mode, but not both at once. This one thing leads to more efficient detecting with all the information you need on screen at once. The Gold Bug Pro gives you the target id, ground phase, and magnetic susceptibility reading all on screen at once while in all metal mode. ads by Amazon... That is how I settled on the Fisher Gold Bug Pro as my all around do everything nugget hunting model. It is not a coincidence it is also the lightest of the bunch at only 2.5 lbs with battery and 5” round DD coil and 2.7 lbs with the 5” x 10” DD coil. It is a basic unit that gets the job done, and that appeals to me. Plus, it does just fine for coins, relics, and jewelry if I wish. if I could improve only one thing it would be to swap the position of the target id and phase readout on the meter. I have to wrap this up by pointing out that these are all fine detectors. I can actually find gold about as well with all of them. The engineers have mid-frequency all metal detectors figured out, and in all metal mode these models are practically equivalent. Small nuances that help one model in certain ground cost it in another and it all evens out. So from a straight up all metal nugget hunting perspective I think a person can use any one of these detectors and be just fine. What differences there are show up far more when comparing discrimination features which are of little use to the nugget hunter. With that said, the final lesson in this article is that it is all the other factors a person should be looking at when making a choice. For me it was just lightweight basic operation. But if waterproof is important, the AT Gold is a no-brainer. The Lobo is very forgiving for beginners simply because it is locked in ground tracking mode. The MXT is a superior all-arounder, and the X-Terra has various tone schemes and notch discrimination features common on top-end detectors. You can make the case for any of them depending on your own particular needs and desires in a detector, and know you will be well served for basic all metal nugget hunting capability. We are lucky to have so many fine choices, all at very affordable prices.
×
×
  • Create New...