AT Pro falsing

[SunriseBoy]

My son bought a Garrett AT Pro for me, (he lives in Atlanta, GA) and sent it over here to Oz for me. The cost of the machines here is disgraceful. (Nearly a grand?! You've got to be kidding!?) So I chose to have my son buy it for me state-side. Big mistake.

Well, after researching and studying for nearly three months about which detector to buy and watching all of the Garrett videos on their site; and hours of videos on YouTube about the Pro, about how good it was and how to use it; I felt I was up to speed on how to operate the machine. I read the instruction book, watched the enclosed DVD and followed all the instructions and set it up as per the manual.

So last Saturday I went to the beach and spent three hours detecting. Well, I spent the last two hours going absolutely bloody nuts with this piece of crap driving me crazy with falsing. Mid and high tones. Dig. Nothing. Do it another dozen times, not even a ring pull.

It didn't matter what settings were programmed. It didn't matter their were no power or electrical sources within 500 metres. It didn't matter that I had no devices or clothing that were touching or interfering with it. I just kept on falsing. So badly it appears to be, that I can now give it a gentle wobble or sway it from side to side and it gives off low, mid and high tones. Go figure.

So I did a factory reset. No change.

Really guys, I am very pissed off.
I've contacted the crew at Garrett twice previously, and received no reply.

Anyway, I'm unable to tell you how disappointed I am, that after going through the three hours of futile effort on the beach yesterday, and talking to experienced detectors and having them try different settings and doing a factory reset a few times nothing has fixed it.

Again, I'm bitterly disappointed, that, after months of sacrificing'scrounging and going without (I'm on a pension), I can't use the detector. It's just pathetic.

So I guess Garrett can get well and truly stuffed as far as I'm concerned.

 

[mudpuppy]

OK...we will help...let me say that was also what I experienced on my first day out with my new Pro 2yrs ago....I about blew a gasket I was so hopping mad!

So we know where you are coming from...I took mine home, took a deep breath, and carefully went through the assembly once again...coil hook up, and headphone hookup taking great care that these were done correctly, you have to make sure everything is seated, and push and wiggle the plugs as you keep gently tightening the collar nuts, a little at a time...then, check the battery installation once again, make sure they are all correct...then turn it back on and set it up to Pro Zero, run the disc up to 40, iron audio off, set sens at around 3clicks from top, drop a coin on the ground, and try that? make sure to tape your coil wire to the lower shaft about 6" up from the coil...

Those little plugs require attention and a gentle hand to make sure they are inserted right, and that the little oring has not rolled out of its groove, or gotten pinched, which can happen ...and when you think you have them tight, another push or wiggle will find you can tighten the collar nut a bit more, until theres no more push or wiggle to the plugs...

Please try this and let us know if it has helped or not, but this will be the start to further help tonight from other posters here...we all need to know for sure you have it put together correctly before we can offer specific advice to what may fix your machine.....lets take this step by step, and in a few hours, you will know for sure...
Mud

for what its worth, I have had ZERO trouble with it in 2yrs of hard hunting...it was just on that first day, and I hadnt got those plugs seated just right...so thats what I'm hoping is whats going on with yours..

 

[togamac]

Sounds like my first day at a salt water beach with my AT Pro. It was continuously "falsing". However, with my couple years of experience with the machine and knowing that just 2 days before it was working fine in the soccer field I was detecting, I knew that it wasn't really falsing but was picking up minerals in the sand. It was actually working pretty good but was not suited for this particular beach.

Before you send it back, take it to a spot away from the beach and try it or try it in fresh water. It may be that your beach sand is heavily mineralized and the AT Pro is not the right machine for it.

 

[jim tn]

n/t

 

[Maine 47]

I thought because I had detectors 25 years ago I could just pick up the ATP and make it work perfectly. How wrong I was!! My first day was a serious dissapointment also.

That night I checked it all over and watched the video and read the manual at least twice. The next day I was finding coins and in 3 1/2 months I have learned a lot about this machine.

I learn something new about this machine every week.

Don't give up that quick. There are people willing to help you if you ask. You will get it figured out and learn the machine with a little practice.

 

[John-Edmonton]

Please contact a dealer in Australia for more help. He will help you with your machine in your type of soils/beach.

 

[MikeLab]

I recall some dealer in Oz was doing mod's for your mineralization. Check with Garrett.

 

[pablo71]

hello got mine yesterday and had same problems ,did what everyone said here and will find out more today,back to palm cove tonite...

 

[Grunter]

Knock your sensitivity down to no more than 3 bars,manuel ground balance to 15 and give it another whirl. The ATP is not the best choice for wet salt sand. It is great in the dry sand and even better in fresh water.

 

[tarajudy]

NO GOOD IN WET SALT SAND!!! THERE IS A SOCCER FIELD WHERE I HUNT SOMETIMES EMI ALL OVER THE PLACE AND FALSING. MOVE OVER TOO BASE BALL FIELD NO PROBLEM.
I ONLY LAKE HUNT AND HAVE GREAT FINDS. (ALSO UNDER WATER ABOUT 3 FT.) SALT BEACHES ARE VERY HARD TO HUNT W/ AT PRO BUT IT WILL WORK FINE IN DRY SAND. 45 YEARS METAL DETECTING

 

[MrBranton33]

I hunt the salt beaches in North Carolina once or twice a year with no problems. I just got back from SC beach, and detected chest deep in the ocean and made several interesting finds. One thing you have to do is remove the coil cover. If sand and sea water get trapped in there it will false a lot. I pulled several targets from the wet sand at 8 inches deep easy. That may be close to max depth in the wet sand, but the signals were pretty good. I'll be posting a video in the next week or so. It's not as deep as a Minelab or CZ on the wet stuff, but plenty useable for the occasional hunt.

 

[MrBranton33]

Best tips I can give are remove the coil cover, and don't scrub the sand. I detect about an inch above the surface.Rapidly moving shallow surf can cause falsing, but out in the deeper water it runs good. I ran 1 bar from max most of the time, near the pier I had to drop a bar due to large power lines. The beach I hunted ground balanced at 13 on the wet sand. The AT Pro did pretty darn good for me in this environment.

 

[Fabio]

My first encounter with wet salty sand was positive. GB down to 20 sens -2 from max. Found the paystreak line immediately (but no treasures). My second encounter with wet salty sand & mud was also positive. The bad part was that under a thin layer of sand, the mud was practically crude oil...

 

[synthnut]

When the AT Pro first came out , there was a problem with the coil .....It would false no matter what you did ....You could hold the coil in the air , completely away from the soil , and if you shook it back and forth , it would false ......THIS was a bad col probem ......I know because I was the guy that pushed the issue on this problem which was corrected by Garrett .....They are a wonderful company and stand behind their product ...... If you can hear this coil false when changing direction abruptly , or if you barely bump into something , the problem is more than likely the very same coil issue that I speak of .... If the problem is ONLY when detecting on a saltwater beach , then it could very well be the amount of iron in the sand that will make the dtector false ......If it's a coil issue , contact Garrett ....They will help you out .....Jim

 

[pro1]

My son bought a Garrett AT Pro for me, (he lives in Atlanta, GA) and sent it over here to Oz for me. The cost of the machines here is disgraceful. (Nearly a grand?! You've got to be kidding!?) So I chose to have my son buy it for me state-side. Big mistake.

Well, after researching and studying for nearly three months about which detector to buy and watching all of the Garrett videos on their site; and hours of videos on YouTube about the Pro, about how good it was and how to use it; I felt I was up to speed on how to operate the machine. I read the instruction book, watched the enclosed DVD and followed all the instructions and set it up as per the manual.

So last Saturday I went to the beach and spent three hours detecting. Well, I spent the last two hours going absolutely bloody nuts with this piece of crap driving me crazy with falsing. Mid and high tones. Dig. Nothing. Do it another dozen times, not even a ring pull.

It didn't matter what settings were programmed. It didn't matter their were no power or electrical sources within 500 metres. It didn't matter that I had no devices or clothing that were touching or interfering with it. I just kept on falsing. So badly it appears to be, that I can now give it a gentle wobble or sway it from side to side and it gives off low, mid and high tones. Go figure.

So I did a factory reset. No change.

Really guys, I am very pissed off.
I've contacted the crew at Garrett twice previously, and received no reply.

Anyway, I'm unable to tell you how disappointed I am, that after going through the three hours of futile effort on the beach yesterday, and talking to experienced detectors and having them try different settings and doing a factory reset a few times nothing has fixed it.

Again, I'm bitterly disappointed, that, after months of sacrificing'scrounging and going without (I'm on a pension), I can't use the detector. It's just pathetic.

So I guess Garrett can get well and truly stuffed as far as I'm concerned.

Hi sunrise boy , I would like to know what ground balance settings you had it on. This is very important especially for beach work i found somewhere between 10-15 with sensitivity down 3 from max in pro zero worked best. The soil in my back yard,i am an ozzy too , is highly mineralized and need the opposite with Ground balance up around 80
I don't think imho that shaking the detector in the air is a good test for falsing. FWIW I have 3 searchcoiuls, one is an at pro ,an at gold coil, and a nell tornado coil. Testing all of these in the air while shaking the coil/detector produced the same but varied results. The bigger the coil the more sound or chatter i got at waist level while shaking the coil ,but with my 5x8 coil and ground balance bumped up to 80 the detector gave the least amount of chatter,almost zero with the same test.Now when i GB the 5 x 8 coil down to 20 it started to chatter with the same test ??. I think it is more important to test at ground level while using the detector than the shake/air test .Dont worry at the moment,like most using this for the first time it takes awhile to understand the sounds it make just my .02c yesterday my second outing with the detector at the beach,just a couple of meters from the sea i dug up a 9ct.gold ring !

 

[DavidGC]

A little research shows that the ATPRO (and ANY other single freq MD) is NOT a good choice for salt water detecting. If your sand has low mineral content (like in some mid-Atlantic and southern states in the U.S.), you can get it to work, but if your sand has high mineral content (like in the northeast U.S. and other places) it will be just about unusable anywhere near the water (though the dry sand may be OK).

This info is widely available.

 

[pro1]

Took the pro to the beach yesterday, just for an experiment i took it into the water ,was a lot of current around ,the pro definitely didnt like being in the salt water ,actually it was more like surf lol although if anything was near the surface i could have picked it out amongst all the other chatter. Once i was on the wet sand no problems at all in fact i had to throw a coin on the sand just to make sure it was still working and very little playing with gb needed!

 

[SoCalBeachScanner]

So I did a factory reset. No change.

Really guys, I am very pissed off.
I've contacted the crew at Garrett twice previously, and received no reply.

Anyway, I'm unable to tell you how disappointed I am, that after going through the three hours of futile effort on the beach yesterday, and talking to experienced detectors and having them try different settings and doing a factory reset a few times nothing has fixed it.

Again, I'm bitterly disappointed, that, after months of sacrificing'scrounging and going without (I'm on a pension), I can't use the detector. It's just pathetic.

So I guess Garrett can get well and truly stuffed as far as I'm concerned.

Hi SunriseBoy,

You never said if you were detecting wet or dry sand. If your detecting dry sand, your machine should not be giving false signals.

Not sure if your corrected the problem with your machine, if not, try this....

There is two ways to perform a factory reset. Most people tend to do a factory reset while the machine is still on. To perform a true factory reset, the machine needs to be off before you hold down the power button to perform the reset.

I had two incidents in the last year and a half when my AT Pro was going nuts and would not clear up with a factory reset while the machine is on. When I shut down the machine and then performed the reset while the machine was off, my machine started running quiet again.

 

[pro1]

My son bought a Garrett AT Pro for me, (he lives in Atlanta, GA) and sent it over here to Oz for me. The cost of the machines here is disgraceful. (Nearly a grand?! You've got to be kidding!?) So I chose to have my son buy it for me state-side. Big mistake.

I totally agree, the cost in australia is a total rip off , the mark ups are huge , and more like $1100 here gee i wonder why we dont support australian business! Hope you get it sorted