AT Pro falsing and chatty in the water? Please help

[Habanero]

Hi, I have had the AT Pro almost two months now and just took it for it's maiden voyage to the local lake today for about 5 hours. I have good news and bad. The good is it seems it held up to the wet environment like advertised; no signs of leaks. The bad, well besides not slicing through the water as well as my last water machine, it was very noisy in the water so I think I have a lot of falsing going on. Ok, settings tried were Pro zero and Pro mode with everything notched in and iron audio set to 35(this cut down on some of the falsing and chatter). Sensitivity I tried from maxxed down to 4 bars but mainly ran it 2 or 3 from max setting after I checked to see if that was causing the issues. Lake is very thin layer of sand, some mud, rocks/pebbles with a clay bottom that is a you know what to scoop in. The question is for you lake hunters, am I supposed to be getting chatter and falsing constantly while swinging? If I stopped and was still it would go away but it took most of my time checking false signals today. Just wondering if this is normal or not? Tried several ground balance attempts in the water as well; it was almost like there was not a spot free of any beeping/falsing to GB. It makes a totally different GB sound in the water; not sure if thats right. My former machine, a Tiger Shark, would run fairly quiet in this same lake and hit good on targets. The AT Pro would just false then every now and then get a good hit on a shallow target. I am just sure I passed over many good targets thinking it a false signal when in fact it was probably a slightly deeper good target. Do I need to tape down that coil wire perhaps? It's only just wound about the pole but not taped nor velcroed down. Anyway, 5 hours hunting and I have some pull tabs, bottle caps, a key ring, one dime, two pennies and a can to show for it all

 

[Trackerman]

Could be the lake minerals iron etc. All vlf machines could get chattery at times. Try different lakes to see results. Also if you don't ground balance it will not help.
Also try reducing sensitivity and try different modes . Also if there lake is real trashy it won't help. There are manny factors good luck

 

[Habanero]

Yea I will get to try another lake soon; hopefully next week if possible. I'm not ready to contact Garrett at this point as I was seeing if it was something I had done or could do or just something inherent with this particular detector. From what you said, I would say lake minerals if it's an environmental factor; maybe something in that clay layer setting it off. Also could be the cable but I think I will try a little black electrical tape for the next outing. I won't get to try it til next week at the soonest but please comment away if you have tips or past experience with this, thanks.

 

[grumpysrb]

Is it Falsing or chatter?

Check your coil connection first. You have to pump the coil about 8 inches when GBing, so you need to be a little deeper in the water than that. Then you can move to more shallow water. Garrett says to pump it 7 or 8 times, but I often have to pump 10 to 13 before it quiets down. If you can't auto GB, you will have to manual GB. There may be a lot of metal (iron) in the sand. Try Pro Coin or Pro custom, and use more iron discrim. You didn't say but it sounds like when I hunt the saltwater. It can be a challenge. Some beaches are much worse than others. If it is a well used beach you are probably hitting a lot of deep metal. I had this problem and didn't figure it out until I hunted a remote beach and moved to more used beaches. It's like a very trashy park, except the sounds are different.

Keep us informed and Good Luck!!

 

[John-Edmonton]

That is normal in water....it is so sensitive, that the sand and water moving around the coil will cause falsing. you can turn down your sensitivity to help, and maintain a parallel coil sweep to the bottom in the water, especially when you are at the end of your swing. also.....slow your swing speed down.

 

[Diggin-it]

Secure the cable to the shaft with some electrical tape. If it will not Auto Ground Balance then do a manual. I don't miss a beat when in the water and my AT-Pro is being chatty or falsing...a non repeatable signal is ignored without breaking my rhythm. You might try changing your search method...for example, I get the most falsing when I work parallel to the shore...the little ripples in the sand are the culprits. So, on a bad falsing/chatty day I will work straight out into the lake, then turn around and work back to shore....and repeat that search style. Doing this darn near eliminates all the falsing and chatter.

Good Luck and HH

 

[djsmith]

Don't know if this will help.you or not but I was hunting in an area of my front yard that got real chatty and giving a lot of false signals I tried reground balancing and everything lowered the sensativity and everything I could think of finally the last thing I tried was to change the frequency to one of the other 3 slightly different frequencies and that did the trick

 

[fongu]

That is normal in water....it is so sensitive, that the sand and water moving around the coil will cause falsing. you can turn down your sensitivity to help, and maintain a parallel coil sweep to the bottom in the water, especially when you are at the end of your swing. also.....slow your swing speed down.

John, I have a hard time in chest deep water keeping my coil level because of the waves in the river and lake I detect in. Also, the water is sometimes about a foot over the unit and I just go by tone to decide whether or not to dig a target. This is opposed to pulling it out of the water and checking the DVI. Same with the pinpoint, if I get a good tone, I move the coil a little and press the pinpoint button and put my foot against the coil and put my scoop next to my foot after moving the coil and go from there. Usually when I first go into the water I do have to ground balance and sometimes I have to lower the sensitivity near the shore, but not as much out in deeper water. The at/pro does have a sensitive coil, that's for sure and it aggravates me some time in the water.

 

[Leslie(nova scotia)]

From the land of the Bluenose....good luck. Helped here.

http://www.garrett.com/hobbysite/hbby_at_pro_videos.aspx

 

[Habanero]

Thanks for the helpful tips and advice; I will try taping the coil wire, adjust frequency, sensitivity and make sure I'm getting a proper GB. I need to watch those videos again too since I have been out with it once already. To the question about chatter vs falsing, I assume its falsing as it goes quiet if I hold the coil/machine still in the water. Does that sound correct? I really leaning towards a scapegoat of minerals in the sand and clay; that or there is just a ton of deep pieces of metal and trash in the lake. I know that hunting on the land around the lake is quite the lesson in trashy land hunting. Lets just call it trashy bottle cap hell. So, if the area outside the water is about the trashiest place you could imagine hunting then perhaps it would stand to reason the water may also hold a lot of deep trash and iron that I am misinterpreting as falsing? Can't wait to get to another of the lakes and see my results there.

 

[grumpysrb]

The difference between chatter and falsing can be tricky,but comes down to Chatter-noise made but you know there is no target and falsing is giving the indication that there is a target when none is there. There may be a lot of chatter, but if the machine is set up properly there should be little if any falsing.

Don't give up. It gave me a lot of frustration.

 

[Habanero]

The difference between chatter and falsing can be tricky,but comes down to Chatter-noise made but you know there is no target and falsing is giving the indication that there is a target when none is there. There may be a lot of chatter, but if the machine is set up properly there should be little if any falsing.

Don't give up. It gave me a lot of frustration.

Thanks for the clarification Grumpy; I cannot say which it is on that description as there may or may not be targets that are causing it. If there are targets then they are either very deep, small or the ground beneath the coil is just littered with one or both. Just trying to rule out machine error, operator error or environmental issue. On land this is not a problem, just in the water so far.

 

[ralph]

I've expierienced something mysterious, untill a light finally came on between my ears. I hunt 2 freshwater lakes connected by a boat channel. The smaller lake was smoothe hunting and rewarding, the larger lake was very chattery & hard to hunt. I finally remembered that the large lake was duck hunted since the 1930's (usually from boats out on the lake) and the small lake wasnot. The chatter in the big lake was caused by both lead buckshot and also the newer steel shot. Had to do a bit of adjusting to compensate for the shot, but I could recognize a coin or ring size target in the pro mode in spite of the chatter(while it was diminished it wasn't totally eliminated).

 

[Habanero]

I've expierienced something mysterious, untill a light finally came on between my ears. I hunt 2 freshwater lakes connected by a boat channel. The smaller lake was smoothe hunting and rewarding, the larger lake was very chattery & hard to hunt. I finally remembered that the large lake was duck hunted since the 1930's (usually from boats out on the lake) and the small lake wasnot. The chatter in the big lake was caused by both lead buckshot and also the newer steel shot. Had to do a bit of adjusting to compensate for the shot, but I could recognize a coin or ring size target in the pro mode in spite of the chatter(while it was diminished it wasn't totally eliminated).

I don't know if this lake has that particular type of history or not but good thinking. I would mainly go for the better signals that were repeatable and not too deep as digging that clay was about as futile as you can get.

 

[grumpysrb]

I went to my favorite beach today and had to stay out of the water and off the high tide line. They were littered with countless pieces of metal chips. Iron or steel, I'm not sure because the VDI and tones went crazy and hit all the way up and down the VDI and tones range. They littered the place like somebody walked up and down with bags of them, all different sizes. I have seen them before, almost every time I go, but never like this.

 

[firstring]

I would think if my detector had falsing issues and I changed coils, the falsing issue went away, I would suspect a defective coil. A person can only do so much adjustments and other things that are suggested. Then what? I purchased a machine for designed and advertised for fresh water hunting and it isn't doing what is designed to do. I followed the documented manufacturer's instructions and am having problems with it. Maybe the solution is to ignore the problem and live with an under performing machine or contact the manufacturer to find what remedy they recommend to solve the issue. Service begins after the sale.

 

[grumpysrb]

Learning the ATP can be a challenge, especially for a first machine. Learning it in saltwater and salty wet sand is another thing entirely. It had me totally confused. It was extremely chatty and I wasn't used to that. Soil and sand are almost opposite. Soil is usually consistant, where sand is ever changing. You can walk along for sometime and it be quiet as a mouse, suddenly it begins to chatter alot. And then I also had the complete opposite. Extremely chatty walking along and suddenly it goes dead quiet. I checked to see if it were still on, it was. As it turns out. most of the time it has to do with how used the beach or that part of the beach is. On one part of the same beach it is very chatty, it's a narrow part along the road. There's countless pieces of iron chips of all different sizes all over. As you move east the chips become fewer and fewer. This part of the beach gets just as much, and maybe more use. But it is 4 times wider and runs for miles. The narrow part is only a mile long and there are houses almost on the beach. Two are in the water.

 

[Habanero]

Ok, reviving my weeks old thread here as I've got an update. I finally made it out to another lake in the area that had different underwater soil conditions and I tell you what, it must have just been that first lake in particular that had something going on in the ground causing my problems. The second lake the AT Pro worked extremely well for me; minimal falsing unless I bumped the lake bottom with the coil and I scooped over 200 targets this trip so there was plenty that I was picking up with good signals. Now, about that first lake, I think it may have to do with some gnarly mineralization in the clay layer or something else going on. I know it's an AT Pro forum here but really miss my Tiger Shark too as I could use it no problems in that particular lake so wishing I had both detectors for different locations. I did ok in the water as well; found a 10k women's ring, some other type of very small gold, wire thin ring and a large 30" silver chain so I was a happy camper that day! Anyway, there's the update and I just figure I will eventually want to get more than one or two machines to fit the site I am hunting to increase my finds and make my experience much more enjoyable.